


Wingdings and Other Crapshoots

by modillian



Category: Bandom, Mindless Self Indulgence, My Chemical Romance
Genre: Alternate Universe - Real World, Angst, Angst and Humor, Bandom Big Bang 2010, Explicit Language, F/M, M/M, Multi, Orgy, Other, POV Multiple, Sex, orgies are hilarious
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-06-28
Updated: 2010-06-28
Packaged: 2017-10-31 13:55:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 20,965
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/344786
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/modillian/pseuds/modillian
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dirty Slice Of Life AU. Also known as Everyone Is An Asshole AU. Bob leases a bar, Brian leases a music store, and all their lives center around Barker Street. Everyone is going to work and being creative and fucking up and content acting like giant assholes to each other until a Big Bad threatens to buy out their street. They will lose their community and scatter to the wind unless they decide to do something about it.</p><p>Life on Barker Street ain't getting any easier. These are their stories.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Wingdings and Other Crapshoots

**Author's Note:**

> In the same universe as [these](http://modillian.livejournal.com/675278.html#cutid1) [two](http://modillian.livejournal.com/707075.html) not!fics, but **Wingdings and Other Crapshoots** can be read as a stand-alone. Also, I am not at all an expert on property management so I am inaccurate about the legal details and handwaved them. Written for Bandom Big Bang 2010.
> 
>  **Disclaimer:** Fiction. If there is typo!fail or more serious fail, please let me know and I'll try to amend it.
> 
>  **Fanart:**  
> [Brian](http://modillian.livejournal.com/725581.html) by erode  
> [Lyn-Z and Gerard](http://modillian.livejournal.com/725848.html) by cool_rain_kiss
> 
>  **Fanmix:**  
> [don't be an asshole](http://modillian.livejournal.com/726129.html) by lady_writes

 

 

**BOB**

"There's a _what_ going down?"

"Do you think I'd play you about this? I'm not playing." Brian is curling and uncurling his hands, and that convinces Bob more than Brian missing the show tonight; Brian ditches shows all the time when he's busy or annoyed with Bob or Bob's people. Brian looks cool and calm and still ready to punch out a motherfucker, though; Brian is fucking worried. "I talked to Jefferson an hour ago, and he isn't playing either. It's not like he's a friend of ours."

"Jefferson's been threatening to sell us out since the first month I moved in here. He's not gonna fold now. Why would he?"

"Fuck's sake, Bryar!" Brian punches the bar counter and gets up to pace. "This is what happens when management changes and people decide you should actually pay your rent instead of letting it slide."

Brian coughs and keeps pacing, smoke swirling around him. The after-closing miasma is heavier than usual tonight. Bob's used to it. He is definitely not used to a serious threat of losing the lease on his bar and getting kicked out.

"I'm telling you, it's a _hostile takeover_. Don't laugh. This shit really happens."

"Yeah, in a war."

"Yeah, and in business too. Bob, we're gonna get kicked out. All of us. All of us on the street. He's gotten interest from some investors in a god-awful holding company that'll buy out Jefferson, throw us all out for non-payment, and set up some Hallmarks and Smoothie Huts."

"But seriously, why now? He's not gonna get any better people than us on this street. And why hasn't Jefferson talked to me about it yet? You need to get, what, some kind of notice before canceling a contract."

"Oh, he'll give you notice soon enough," Brian says darkly. He looks pale and in smudgy outline against the dim lights, tattoos bleeding over the background. He coughs again.

Bob gets out from behind the bar and opens the front window. He should really air out the place anyway, turn on the fans. He usually forgets. Has been forgetting for years.

A warm arm next to his, and Brian is at the window too, leaning into the cold night air.

They stay there for a while, then Brian pulls out his Marlboros.

Bob takes the one offered. "That's the ticket. Worry about it tomorrow, man."

"It already is tomorrow, dickhead. Happy fucking anniversary."

The banner on one inside wall is already half torn away, "-iversary Week" is all that's left.

***  
**GERARD**

Mikey really, really need to stop swinging his legs or he's going to kick over the bucket of velvet red paint and Gerard will so not be the one cleaning up that shit.

"Stop that! If you knock that over I'll rip your head off."

"No you won't, you can't even rip open those Cheez-its packets." Oh god, now Mikey's definitely going to knock over the bucket, and then Mikey will run out the door so Gerard will have to be the one to clean it up, and he'll probably get distracted halfway through, and then he'll be tracking red paint flakes over everything for the next month until it all eventually peels away and gets blown out through the door and mixed with the mist and the rain, and it will look like someone _died_ out in front of the studio. Someone bleeding out for like a month.

That's kind of cool, actually.

Mikey swings his leg, it connects with the can and knocks it over.

Oh, the lid was hammered on. Huh. Gerard's a little disappointed.

"So did you hear? The Vault is closing up shop," Mikey says.

"No it's not," Gerard says.

"Yes it is."

"No, it's - wait, what are you, five again?" Gerard returns to his painting, which needs the tiniest bit of changing before dipping fine lines across the old man's face. A little smudged, much better for all that despair. Yep, it's perfect. He is _amazing_.

"The Vault is a shitty name for a bar anyways, what do I care. I've got bigger problems. Duncan MacLeod won't even come to see my work, fuck! He didn't even RSVP to say he wasn't coming."

"Oh wow. An art critic was rude to you. How weird," Mikey deadpans. Gerard turns around quickly to shoot a laser-beam glare at him but stumbles and loses hold of his palette in the process. His perfectly-mixed shades of charcoal, alabaster, and gunmetal grey are lost forever.

"Fuck! I hate everyone! I hate _you_!"

"Uh-huh. Got any food in here? I'm starving."

Gerard simmers for a while and throws around markers. He knocks off a pile of construction paper of his suitmate's desk and hastily jams it back up. Ugh, craft glue get everywhere. He's so glad he banned glitter from the beginning or he'd never be able to sell anything again without it being sparkly.

Gerard's work is not sparkly. His work is matte and intense and full of the unknown pains of the world that only he can convey as well as he does. It's a shame he could only afford a studio on Barker Street, which has cool people on it, but does not exude mystery and unknowable pain. It exudes engine oil and drunk musicians instead. That's still not his main problem, not in the least.

The showcase that night is a disaster. Heinous. A blowout of epic proportions.

The setup is all wrong, for one.

It's blustery and raining outside for another, so the chances of art being ruined as Frank shlocked it inside on top of not being able to go outside to smoke are compound calamities.

"Jesus Christ fucking a donkey, who thought mixing up our work was a good idea? Hello, anyone? I don't even sculpt, ugh, get her stuff away from me. It's ruining the flow of my storytelling!"

"You're welcome, shit-for-brains. Where's the food?"

Gerard shrieks, "Frank!" but it's no use, he's sat down on top of the cooler and eating cookies already. Gerard flings his hands wide and starts untangling the mess of his artwork from from hers where Frank had just set everything down in disarray.

It's inevitable; she opens the front door, entrance bell jingling, and a trail of crumpled newspapers and empty soda cans blow in behind her.

"Well, at least it isn't Friday the thirteenth," Lyn-Z says, and closes the door, not even booting out the garbage again. Whatever, Gerard isn't going to clean up after her. Maybe it'll add to the atmosphere of the place -muddy mystique, trash hall emporium, eau de toilet bowl.

She gets her hands in the shuffle of stuff Frank had just left in the middle of the floor, and then the proprietor and his fellows get the tables set up and haul her shit to her own side of the showcase, so Gerard has time to fret and pause and boss around people to hang his shit properly and yell at Frank to stop eating the whole world.

Frank says, "Hey, is that the chick you're talking about? She's totally hot, man," and cranes his neck around while shrugging his hands in his pockets to look casual. The exaggerated leaning gives him away.

"Ugh, gross, I wouldn't even bother. She's a headcase. Head. Case. She does mobiles, and she wanted to use glitter in our studio. Glitter! I'll break out in hives thinking about it any longer."

"What? Glitter, whatever, she _is_ a girl. Hey, should I have worn something with glitter on it? Can I fuck her without glitter, or is it a thing with her? That's kinda freaky, dude."

Gerard grits his teeth and switches the placement of two paintings to see if the light brings out more of the green on his toxic waste spill. It does. Score one for Gerard, minus a million points of bad taste for Frank. "Don't get me started. Just stay out of the way and don't block my pieces."

Frank widens his stance and crosses his arms, looking full at Gerard instead of checking out the woman who shares the studio with Gerard, and cripes, agreed to share showcase space as well. Fuck, what had he been thinking?

"Fine, asshole, don't give me any tips. I'll still get laid, you watch. Hey look, more cookies!"

"Ugh," Gerard exclaims, and goes to his wall to minutely level the paintings so they don't hurt his eyes to look at or put off any buyers. Exact leveling is key to closing a deal, after all.

Then Mikey gets there, and some of Gerard's old art teachers, and he chats with them for a while about his future vision and they nod approvingly except for Professor Meyer, who looks confused and wonders aloud why glitter would negatively affect his vampire paintings, and Gerard's jaw drops and he has to excuse himself to walk across the room and compose himself.

He totally doesn't expect to be further accosted after that. There are only so many dramas that can happen in one evening in one setting, so Gerard figures he's blown through his and his studio-mate has finished hers (she deliberately collapsed one of her own statues and basked in the applause and excited discussion, and then when Frank tried the classic lean-in-and-loom move even though she was taller than him, she'd politely elbowed Frank in the face. Okay, maybe _she's_ the one with some taste. Plus one point to her.)

Then Johnny fucking Fanx walks through the door. Gerard is frozen on the spot, next to Frank grumbling in a corner with his vampire painting.

He feels vertigo, like he's in some Hitchock film, because Johnny fucking Fanx is checking out his exhibition. Gerard might faint. He has to go somewhere else, actually, and sit the fuck down and breathe into a paper bag for a little bit and grabs Mikey away from some spikey-haired guy to babble at him for a bit.

"Dude, just talk to him. Don't say you're a fan! Just be all, heeey, I know your stuff, what do you think of this piece. And try to get him to compliment you and tape it in a recorder hidden in your jacket pocket. Then you can have proof and put it in your portfolio."

"Wait, what? Man, I really should have thought of that earlier." Mikey is a genius. Gerard cranes his neck around, and he still can't tell which piece Johnny's viewing, but he's actually rubbing his chin all thoughtfully, and holy Batman, Gerard is going to jitter himself to pieces.

"Don't worry about it. Just go say hi. Do it now!" Mikey pushes his sneakers against Gerard sneakers until Gerard trips up and walks over to Johnny.

Or, he gets derailed by nervous nausea and has to go to the tiny bathroom and huff pathetically for a while, but he comes back out ready to talk maybe for a minute before hiding again.

Johnny fucking Fanx is talking to Lyn-Z. Johnny fucking Fanx is _laughing_ with Lyn-Z as she waves to her carousel of paper-mâché death. Gerard's jaw drops. They linger over the carousel and shake hands before Fanx departs, leaving bits of Gerard's broken soul trailing after him. He's been horribly betrayed. He can't breathe. He can't _breathe_.

Gerard feels marginally better after he's talked to some buyers while Lyn-Z has none (although she does have Johnny Fanx's attention, and the internal wailing cycles up again.) He feels even better after making Frank throw away all the leftover drinks and crap and then watching him fail spectacularly.

"What the hell are you doing?" Lyn-Z yells and pushes Frank back by the shoulder.

"Whoops, was that your art? Well if it were good art, I wouldn't have pissed on it."

"What the fuck were you thinking?"

"Eh, you gotta admit it doesn't look like much of a statue."

"Collapsible art!"

"Well, shit, I don't know what that is! So why's the john locked, anyway? Someone else having sex in there? Goddamnit."

Lyn-Z spins around to start packing up, and Gerard gets the perfect moment to accuse Lyn-Z of idol-stealing. She rebuffs him, "He's got a new film and liked my artistic direction. I'd be happy to do work on it. Why, are you working out background mobiles too? If you have, I haven't seen them." Gerard's jaw drops, and Lyn-Z goes, "Ha!" and flips him off.

Gerard swears and begins to storms out of the building, but it's still raining, so he jiggles the door handle to smoke in the bathroom instead and escape the fire alarms.

Except there are suspicious sex noises coming from inside the bathroom like Frank said, and Mikey is nowhere to be seen in the show room, and Gerard _knows_ his brother. So instead Gerard just runs both hands through his hair and uses his spare keys to leave with Frank in Mikey's car. If Mikey isn't there to commiserate with Gerard's incredible failure of a showcase, then he gets to be the one bumming a ride home with some random person he'd fucked _in a bathroom_ , Jesus.

Mikey calls at two in the morning, when Gerard is moping and full of despair, and asks if Lyn-Z is a dyke.

"How should I know?"

"Well, she's got this awesome car that runs on like, fumes and wheatgrass, and she said something about glitter being a reflection of the soul, and her car's orange and she gave me a ride home. Plus, she totally didn't want to make out with me, man. Just as like, one favor for another. That's strange, right?"

Gerard bites his tongue and just moans.

 

***  
**MIKEY**

Mikey, for reasons that do not need to be discussed, is no longer down with The Vault, and will no longer patronize the bar. This has nothing to do with the inevitable foreclosure, because Bob put his life into that bar, man, and it is a shitty thing to see a dream go down the drain. Also, Mikey'll be really bummed not to get half-priced drinks anymore, since he can't recommend bands to go to Bob's bar instead of the other hole in the wall bars downtown, and Mikey's sad to miss a drinking opportunity. He'll be sad to see it go even though he's no longer cool with the rules. Bob is cool, of course, and the bands that schlep all over the stage are a testament to the lifestyle Mikey loves, but he has a few scruples that he is just not willing to let slide, and Bob pinning up a new rule that flies in the face of every principle in Mikey's book is one of them.

How could he, really? It's like the bar wants to foreclose itself, with that kind of new rule. Mikey reshuffles his business to other clubs in protest.

He goes to Jesse's bar instead, where there is one of those everyday punk bands that are so reassuring to find. He flings up some posters for Eyeball, schmoozes with the fans for a little and spreads the word around dropping names everywhere, and then makes out with a dude in eyeliner for a warmup. At the next place, a house party, he flicks hair out of his eyes talking about the new LPs on his hands, high-fives the band, and gets off with this amazing strawberry blond chick in line for the bathroom who tells him to look her up if he ever wants to make more uses out of his long fingers with piano lesson. Then at the last gig around two in the morning he throws a few Eyeball t-shirts around and gets nabbed by Gabe Saporta (again) and his tall, bendy, sarcastic friend to fuck in a closet. Gabe enjoys irony, and Mikey isn't going to turn any of that ass down.

Mikey is all for sex, basically, even more when there's a plurality of persons. He is a pro-orgy person, and even more of a pro-one-night-stand-orgy person. He therefore stands against any orgy ban. It's against his way of life, pretty much, and lifestyle discrimination is _bad_. It cuts him to the core that Bob isn't more understanding of these things.

This was a much better weekend than the one before, at least. Mikey should really learn better than to pick up two girls after he was already knackered from some serious business and then some sexy business earlier in the day; too much sex leads to too many accidents, and he still had the scrapes on his shins and hurty spots on the back of his head to prove it.

The point is, the point is that Mikey dislikes, does not approve of, and cannot endorse the addition of the Number Eleven Rule onto Bob's ruleboard of [Top Reasons You Will Get Kicked Out](http://i48.photobucket.com/albums/f240/ichorkore/Picspam/SignatReggiesforTheBouncingSouls_do.jpg) from The Vault. Number Eleven: Any Orgies Anywhere (will get you kicked out.) Rule Number Fucking Eleven, how awful is that? It's right after Spitting/Vomiting (will get you kicked out) and Throwing Shit (will get you kicked out.) Bob is a cool dude, but that shit is just discriminatory. What kind of bar doesn't approve of multiple hookups or multiple-person hookups in its bathrooms or storage closets or front window? Not any bar Mikey likes. He's met tons of good people while making out in closets. Hell, that's how he met Frank, by ditching that hulky dude-bro in Jesse's bar to tag along to Frank's place and sleep on the floor and never leave (and okay, pay rent for a room, but fair's fair.)

Frank used to have a ton of fun hitting people in the face and then fucking them in bathrooms, but Mikey's pretty sure that all tapered off once he started fucking Ray. The Ray and Frank thing totally surprised Mikey, which just does not happen around town, and he's still grumpy about it. Frank refuses to tell him when they started hooking up and makes jokes about coffee tables instead and Mikey feels like he's missing something. There wasn't a plan for the Ray and Frank thing, as far as he could tell, but sometimes that was for the best; too messy, otherwise, for when they'd break up.

For the real important stuff, it's always real good to have goals and plans for the future. Like music (Mikey approves of Frank's planning even if the follow-through is uneven.)

Bands need to have a vision so they can light a gas-fire under themselves and get gigs, and maybe an album before imploding and morphing into the next band. It's the only way to go. Too bad this side of town hasn't amounted to anything, and it definitely won't amount to much after Barker Street gets split apart and eaten up. Mikey has his own plans for future endeavors, he's been moving his best gigs out of the area and up in the city, which is just depressing, but what can he do? Nothing much, except move on. Mikey's gotta be real about his prospects, but he'll still miss Jersey. Shame about Bob's bar, though.

Mikey's telling this to a very skinny kid clutching a Beatles record sometime later on in the week (he forgets what day, but it was the day before the next gig at Carmichael's and right after the motherfucking shakedown at Matt's house where Mikey had to flee the cops. Good times.)

Mikey's leaning on the counter at Brian's store, gradually shifting his hips so his t-shit rises up and shows off some skin, and the little Beatles dude is getting all big-eyed. Score. He'll have this wrapped up in five minutes and get sucked off in ten.

Something taps his elbow. Ow, he's bruised there too, goddamnit. No more fucking on tile floors in the future. Mikey mentally puts it into his Life Plans Outside of Jersey.

"What's all this about Life Plans?" Brian asks, tapping Mikey's elbow again.

"They're important to have, man. Can't change anything big, can't build anything great without a specific plan in mind. Specificity is _key_."

"Huh. That's...you might be onto something there. Bob can be pretty specific when he puts his mind to it," Brian wonders aloud, and Mikey can feel his expression flatten immediately.

"What are you so twisted up about? Still don't like Bob's new rule?"

"I'm not twisted up! That's just a close-minded position on certain...situations, man. I don't appreciate that kind of restriction of freedom. America is all for freedom, man." The Beatles-dude nods seriously. Mikey so likes this kid.

Brian grunts. "Bob is close-minded?"

"No, the bar! The bar and its...rules. All those rules."

"There aren't that many," Brian snorts. "And Bob is the boss of the bar. Bob made the sign. Those ideas were all first in Bob's head. So, you don't like Bob anymore?"

Holy shit, Brian's gotten needly about Bob ever since they started fucking. "No, hell, I love Bob. Who doesn't? That's like saying you don't like peanut butter. I just don't like that rule, man."

Brian's face wrinkles up and he swipes his hand over his stubble. "Well you won't have to worry about following Bob's rules too much longer. Unless we...get a plan. Maybe. A specific kind of plan, you'd recommend?"

"Exactamundo, just what I was saying. You need plans for the important things, and let the other shit work itself out. Now, speaking of working out..." and Mikey is free from Brian frowning and tapping his fingers annoyingly on the counter, and leads Beatles Boy not at all surreptitiously to the employee's restroom Mikey is not supposed to use but does anyways. Brian looks too preoccupied to even notice them, so Mikey takes his time and curls his hands over the boy's hips slowly.

"So, what's your favorite Beatles song again? Maybe you could hum it for me, and I'll guess," Mikey says, and nudges the guy down by the shoulders.

 

***  
**LYN-Z**

It would all have turned out much better if she'd bought that 1998 VW Bug instead of taking Jimmy's old crapper off his hands. She hadn't been _that_ broke. Sure, the Bug would've made transporting her art into another creatively challenging project, but she could've worked with it.

Instead she'd wound up with a faulty car she'd already put too much money into to toss outright, and a necessary part-time gig at Delancy's club to pay for the repairs. Delancy's was awesomely kitchy and had opened up a series of welcome adventures into her life. Delancy's has swing nights on Thursdays, bingo nights on Tuesdays, and hosted Seniors Card Shark Club every other week. Delancy's is where she met Jimmy and Chantal. Delancy's is where they brought Steve to do karaoke after he'd sworn he'd never do it again, but after he lost a bet and Chantal'd flashed another group of little old ladies and one'd actually _fainted_ , then he'd had to do it.

Delancy's is where Lyn-Z saw Brian Schechter shake hands with her boss and have a few guys move out the old sound system and install another. Lyn-Z brought him a straight whiskey after the new system was up and running and giving her fewer headaches while it played. He'd nodded thanks and asked for her number.

She'd laughed. "You're pretty hot, dude, but I don't go for customers, not even the ones getting free drinks."

"Nah, nah," he waved her off. He _blushed_ a little. "You're Lyn-Z, the artist? I heard from your friends." Yes, Jimmy really did like loudly yelling anything at all during bingo night.

Brian said he knew a local guy needing to share a studio, and Lyn-Z had leapt at the chance, because renting studios downtown was way easier (and cheaper) than in the city, and she still had enough contacts uptown to keep her fresh and busy up there anyway. She'd met the other artist and had coffee with him and figured the guy was a little weird and high-strung (but what artist wasn't?) The situation seemed workable.

That is, for the first month it had seemed workable. After that the gloves were off and Lyn-Z was ready to draw first blood.

"That is the dumbest idea for a diorama I have ever heard. Also, depressing. Are you depressed? Are you going to slit your wrists here? If you do, leave the blood on your side of the studio, because I don't know if I have enough turpentine to clean it off the bottom of my paintings."

Lyn-Z snaps the rubber cement brush into the bottle and twists the lid in sharp movements. "Yes, I'll try to keep my blood all to myself. I'll put it on the list."

Gerard actually gets up and pens it onto the bottom of their studio-sharing list of rules right then and there.

What a jackass.

Yeah, Lyn-Z's just gonna blame her junker car for all her troubles. It's just as likely as any of the other reasons. She can't even blame Brian; he's too nice to pin a trouble like Gerard on, even if she can't understand how they're friends. She can't understand how Gerard has _any_ friends.

Then there's payback, as there always is with Gerard. This is better than she'd even hoped. "Are you drawing a _flaming bedazzled skull_?"

He scrunches up his face grumpily. "Shut up, it's a commission. Someone wanted a tattoo."

"Holy shit, you'll draw bedazzled skulls for a commission, but a little bit of glitter is out of the question?"

"My bedazzled skulls do not leave trails of evidence everywhere and wedge themselves onto every piece of wet artwork ever. They stay right where I'll put them, on paper and on this guy's skin!"

"Properly managed glitter isn't a workplace hazard," Lyn-Z says for the millionth time. "And anyway, you just want your art to stay exactly where it's been put? That's so fucking boring, not transient or dynamic at all."

"Not everyone enjoys construction paper deconstruction, or decoupage, or collapsible statues or whatever."

"It was meant to collapse! That flamingo reacted to the environment it was placed in, and it performed the appropriate behavior when inhabiting an inhospitable climate for a tropical bird."

"For paper-mâché and a pipe cleaner frame. It collapsed, and now no one can see it again."

"It _died_. Just like a real bird could have. Intransient art," Lyn-Z sighs dreamily. "Perfect."

"What a waste of time," Gerard murmurs. And then, "Fuck, I am still not agreeing to glitter!" and shoves in some earbuds and pulls out his acrylics.

Not that Lyn-Z has anything against acrylics. They are a basic tool and virtually unmockable. It's just that Lyn-Z has been having a wonderful time working through her performance art phase, but Gerard has been very contemptuous all through it. He isn't being very encouraging about anything else either, which is just demoralizing, especially when she'd had so much fun with her last studio partner when they cheered each other on and talking about inspiration until three in the morning. God, she missed Jessicka.

He's still going on about fucking glitter. What the fuck. "Okay, here's a deal. If I can prove to you how useful, no, essential, the glitter is to my next projects, will you agree to let it in the studio?"

Gerard harrumphs for a while, but agrees eventually. "It'd better be something pretty fucking spectacular."

Fuck him. Lyn-Z will show him fucking spectacular. Just as soon as she gets this last purple-grey paper corpse put together, she'll show that loudmouth what a fucking _genius_ she is.

***  
**FRANK**

Frank is totally not sure how this even happened. He's probably be a little clearer on current events if he were less hungover.

He sticks his head under the running faucet, and yelps when it connects with his eyeball. "Christ on a motorcycle, fuck _me_!" His neck hurts too, and what the fuck what the fuck, so do his knuckles and why is there a full carafe of coffee in the sink? Well, it's cold and watery coffee now.

Frank chants his fucks and yells asking where the bandages are for his knuckles.

"Right cabinet, above the liquor," Mikey says from the couch, and Frank knew there was a good thing about having a roommate. Roommates help a lot with bandaging.

"I'm not touching your blood, ugh, gross dude," Mikey says, and sticks his feet up over the magazines on their coffee table, and yeah right, who's gross _now_? Frank totally knows where those mags have been.

"If you don't bandage me up I'll bleed all over the floor!"

"Nah," Mikey says and pulls his shirt over his head.

"Well fuck you too, I never liked you either." Frank storms out of the apartment, but then he has to come back in and collect his shoes and his smokes. Then he gets out again, Mikey yelling something about Wheat Thins through the door.

Frank can't stop though. Too many distractions in his life as it is. Fucking Wheat Thins! What the fuck, he has no time for that. Frank is on a _mission_. He is going to fucking make it and drop another record that's not on Pencey if it kills him.

It's just too fucking bad no one else in his band is helping him along. Practice would be nice. Practice would be _great_. Frank is going to text his bros to wrestle a practice time with them tomorrow night if it kills him.

First there's donuts at the corner diner though. And then, pancakes. For fortitude. And then he gets a little zoned out writing furious in his lyric notebook for a while trashing on and on with some awesome metaphors about wasting time procrastinating and strangling chickens. Gotta get 'em with the metaphor, fuck yeah. Gerard comes in to the diner and sits with him for a while going on and on about the trajectory of storyboards for a comic idea he has, maybe, that he might do, eventually, when he has time after painting, but he's having a hard time focusing with the oppressive threat of glitterfication of his studio with whatshername, and then Frank laughs.

"She does _not_ do glitter. She is not a glitter person, dude. She'd probably, like, eat my face off before using glitter. She'd eat _your_ face off before using glitter."

"Fuck yes, she is a glitter person! You haven't seen the tubes of it she's got around." Gerard says this mournfully. Frank feels for him, but then he thinks about how funny Gerard's bleeding clown paintings would look with glitter stuck in them and doesn't hide his laugh. Gerard glares then flips back into dramatics. "It's bad enough with all the little construction paper pieces getting sticky and gluing themselves to MY art while it's still drying, and then I have to pull them off and repaint which is disastrous, but a man's got to have some principles, right? No glitter is a principle. Glitter is out of the question in my studio! It's like fleas, once they get in, they never get out!"

"Dude, you can totally get rid of fleas, what are you talking about." Frank likes some accuracy in his life, thank you very much. But, fleas, bees, on your knees, _yes_ , that is something there. He scribbles it in the margins of the song about his second ex-girlfriend from high school.

"That's not the point! The point is, a man has principles, okay, and he's gotta stick to them."

Frank can totally agree with that.

Which is why he leaves and borrows Matt's car to go to his Ma's house and bring stuff out of the attic for her like he said he would. He says yes Ma, no Ma, yes Ma, I'll get that Ma, will you quit it Ma you're gonna throw your back out and and Mr. McGinty's gonna have to help me drag you out of here on a stretcher again.

In the end he's all dusty and sneezy and he has to re-wrap the bandages on his knuckles, and Ma slaps at his hands before disinfecting them and re-wrapping them herself. Aunt Elaine and Uncle Eddie come over and they eat mostacholi and drink way too much wine and Frank takes a nap while the old folks talk, dozing under the ancient knitted throw on the couch with the plastic seatcovers on it. He wakes up from slowly sliding off the couch, squeaky plastic easing him gently down onto the floor, and the _thwap thwap_ of the kitchen fan still turning, turning.

Ma's house never changes.

Frank remembers how _he's_ changing, though, 'cause his writing notebook is split open, soft from where he usually lays it open on that one page with the song about slashed tires and slashed hearts he's been scribbling over for ages. Uncle Eddie's scrawling handwriting in the margins, "Nice, but needs a chorus," makes Frank smile. He kisses his Ma goodbye still smiling, but stops when he rolls in Bob's bar since whoops, it's night already, guess he'll text his bros _now_. He has to sternly remind himself to focus, focus, and only check out some girls' asses half the time and spend the other half the time with an ear to tonight's rival band (shitty, Frank should beat them to death with their own guitars and call it a night.)

"Frank, go fuck yourself, like your band is any better," Bob growls at him.

"Monkeys on Fire is totally better than this crap!" Then Frank gets distracted by some guy with totally pouty lips. Bob doesn't notice and isn't even looking Frank's way to make fun, because Bob is a shit.

No, no, focus. Less with the fucking, more with the music. At least that's what he's been trying to do, lately.

It's difficult to say how successful he's been. For one, there's still been an awful lot of fucking people in dirty bathroom stalls, and he's not sure how that stacks up against droning through half-hour practices and then peacing out until the day of a show.

Frank is _focused_. Frank is focusing on being focused, okay. He is totally making progress. He's also not thinking about Ray at all. He's definitely not thinking about Ray, or what happened the last time, or the time before, and in fact, if Ray gets in his face again, Frank'll do just what he did last time and punch Ray right in the face. This time he won't miss and split his knuckles open on a brick wall either.

Frank takes the pouty guy to the bathroom and gets off with him, because focus can get shot full of lead at ten at night after a day of writing and not remembering.

***  
**RAY**

Ray finds out about Jefferson preparing to sell out all his holdings and leave everyone on the Barker Street Strip high and dry even before Mikey does. Mikey's got ears everywhere, but Ray's got a busted amp cable and excellent fucking luck on his side, since he walks in Brian yelling to Jefferson on the phone about broken leases and state rental laws.

Okay, he and about ten other regulars in the store hear him. For a smoker, Brian's got a good pair of lungs on him. He comes out of his not-so-private back office breathing like a water buffalo and barks at everyone to buy something or get out.

Ray is _incensed_ , of course.

"I don't fucking care, if it's under warranty and it broke, then _I'm_ definitely not replacing it. Send it back to the damn manufacturer, Ray."

"Like hell I will. Strom and Becker have never send back anything but shit sandwiches as replacements to me before. Come on, Brian, how much business do I run by you? Eat the cost and hit me up, bro."

Brian turns an ugly tomato color after that, and Ray is so insulted at getting pointed to the door. Who the fuck does Brian think he is, anyway? If he weren't the only store with a good enough selection of guitars then Ray would've fucked off a long time ago. He'd miss the under-the-table vinyls dealing that way, but Ray could find another source, easy as pie. Fuck _Brian_.

He cuts back to his apartment to fiddle with the levels on his pedals, then neatly lays out his music paper and software writer and tells himself _okay, write. do it._ Usually, it works. Usually, he tells himself to do it, and shit just _happens_ , just comes pouring out of him like a geyser and he has to scramble to get it all down before it disappears over the horizon. Then he fucks with the chords for a thousand hours and brings it all together and bitches with the guys he's sharing studio time with and eventually grabs someone else who owes him to do drums and filler parts and slap down demos. Fuck a band, he can do it all by his goddamn self, and when he grabs a record deal he'll just hire a bunch of professionals instead of the lame-ass amateurs on Barker Street. Ray does not have time or energy to fuck around with other dudes who aren't serious and who'd mess up his mojo. Fuck _them_. Fuck everyone else who gets in his way.

Except, that's not what happens. That's what hasn't been happening for a month now. He stares at his open notebook and open computer windows and curses the teeth out of his head. Nothing comes.

Fuck.

He calls up Matt, but that fucker can't go anywhere himself because Frank fucking Iero still has his car, and because Iero is a dick, and Ray curses him out. Iero has been extra skittish lately and looking snidely at him a lot more than usual, and it's been pissing Ray off. Fuck him. Frank's pissant band doesn't make him better than Ray. Ray doesn't need his shit.

He calls up Gerard instead and Gee picks him up with Mikey's car. He apparently doesn't know what's up with Frank either.

"I have bigger problems than Frank being a loser, look what I've been dealing with for months! This goddamn woman!" Gerard is smoking and running his fingers through his hair, but still absurdly steady on the road. He skirts a barely-there pothole and comes to a full stop to let a bunch of greasy-looking teenagers cross the street.

What a wuss. Ray is tired of dealing with wusses every goddamn day and tired of stating the obvious to everyone. He chafes his cold hands together. "Dude, just ask her out already. Your hardon is showing."

"Fuck you! I don't like her, that's woman is crazy. She's obsessed with dying or something, crazy funeral dioramas and collapsing birds and stuff. It's creepy." Ray rolls his eyes. Gerard doesn't notice. "And besides, she got Johnny Fanx to look at her work, I mean, that's just, I had no idea he was moving in such a shitty direction." Gerard throws his nose up in the air and Ray can't help it, he laughs.

"I thought you liked his last film. The one with the zombie squirrels in the shampoo bottles killing everyone?"

" _Squalor in the Beauty Parlor_! But that's exactly what I mean, I didn't know he was downgrading his work so much," Gerard says all snottily, ash smearing on the back of his fingerless gloves and flinging onto Ray's lap.

"Watch it, asshole! Jesus. Jealousy does not look good on you, man," Ray says through cupped fingers, blowing. Gerard squawks in outrage, and ineffectively bangs on the heater some more, then edges in to parallel park and gets out to make sure he hasn't dinged the bumper. Gerard is nuts and makes Ray jittery when he's so careful with other people's important things. As far as Ray's concerned, other people's important things are to be taken advantage of and enjoyed by Ray as much as possible. Fuck Brian again for not even lending him an amp cable, _fuck_.

So obviously Ray is filled up with all the bullshit he can stand by the time they get into The Vault. The place is gearing up, but Gee waltzes over to Bob at the soundboard without too much trouble. He seems to sweep by and make his own path somehow, sometimes, Ray doesn't know how he does it. Freaky Way hoodoo or something. He gets plenty of shots, and then that hotass girl with the hot pants and red hair is there again. He squares his shoulders and jerks his chin at her. She flings her hair over her shoulder and goes over to hang off the arm of some strange-looking string-bean dude and woah, well. Some people just are born with no taste. Thank God Ray's not one of them.

When Brian finally shows up Ray contemplates punching him out, on account of skinflint principle, and on account of no longer needing to make long-term strategies for buying from him anymore. Then Matt shows up on Brian's elbow thanking him for the ride, and gets behind the bar to start serving, and okay, maybe Brian can go unpunched a little longer.

He slaps Matt on the back and starts drinking what he's being served.

He doesn't expect all the moaning when he gets into the bathroom, is all. He's a little drunk and not expecting sex noises in there. Some dude walks through the door after Ray and immediately walks back out, and okay, so maybe it's not unusual for sex to be happening anywhere in Bob's bar but it's not normal to be broadcasting it all over the place. Bob does not like people hooking at his place, it's up on the ruleboard right out front, and Bob enforces that shit. Ray focuses on pissing and zipping up to get outta there to tell Bob and then to laugh and point as the people get thrown out.

Frank walks out of the stall wiping down his face, sees some other guy in knock-kneed sprawl on the dirty floor as the door bangs open and shut.

"Aw fuck, Iero."

"What? Fuck you." Frank pats himself down and washes his hands.

"Come on, that's lame even for a motherfucker like you. In Bob's _bar_?"

"What's you're problem?" Iero cracks his jaw, and Ray cringes. He walks out saying over his shoulder, "Something isn't working in your head, fuckface. In Bob's bar, at a time like this, really?"

Frank follows him out. "That's not the only thing that isn't working, jackass."

"Like what, you? You and you're routine of not paying me up? Like your routine of sucking ass in your bands?"

"Shut the fuck up. And stop hitting me up for money, dude, I don't owe you anything."

"G-string, motherfucker! You don't get to work it out on me like the guy in the bathroom either. What did he do, buy you a drink for a blow? Bob doesn't like boy-toys any better than the johns." Ray is getting out of this overheated bar, already too many bodies filling up the place, and slings open the broken back alley door

"Christ, what is your problem? You're not the boss of me." Frank is getting more red-faced, not less, and _still following him_ , what the fuck.

"Like I'd ever want to be."

Frank shoulders him into the wall and grips his arms. "Fuck, dude, what? Pay me, beer me, or get out of my fucking face!" Frank looks frustrated and visibly grits his teeth, then juts his jaw out

And Ray gets it. His head clicks over, and all his sex-lights shimmy on in succession. Ray grabs Frank's arms in turn and flips them the other way around. A series of street lights pop on one after another behind him, the backlit glow giving them away, and Ray feels a bunch of things all like that: Frank's hard grip on Ray, his swollen lips, still steely-eyed, and a boner jammed into Ray's thigh.

"What the fuck, why didn't you say so," Ray murmurs, and reaches for his zipper.

"God, whatever," Frank says under his breath.

"Condom?"

"Fuck, yes." Frank hands it over and fixes out his own pants situation. This is really awkward, half on, half off, and Frank just nudges his knee into Ray's hip, and Ray hefts him up.

"You're not...?"

"I'm _fine_ , just fucking do it, come on! Stop being such a pussy."

"Assmuch."

"Dickweed." Frank hisses when Ray get his dick inside, and fuck Frank, that is _not_ fine. Frank's clenching unsteadily and Ray waits him out, rucks him up and changes the angle a little. Frank actually sighs a little as he opens up.

"Fuck you," Frank says preemtively.

"Well," Ray says, then he starts to move.

Ray can see his face really well; Frank's expression loosens up the longer they go until he's all shuddery, shakily bitten bottom lip, and eyes widening so big before squeezing shut. The noises start up and that, yes, that was definitely not what he'd heard in the bathroom, that's why he didn't recognize it. Frank makes the craziest, most desperate sounds when Ray fucks him.

Ray's legs are straining, and he's chuffing steadily into Frank's neck, when Frank _bites_ his _ear_ , what the fuck, and that totally breaks his rhythm. He holds Frank tighter and gets off.

Frank moans like a wild thing when he comes between them, up on his sweatshirt and Ray's jean jacket, and shit, that's gonna stain, and wow, that had to have chafed like a motherfucker.

Frank hits him on the shoulder until Ray pulls out, and then he's gone, zipping up and flipping open the door to the bar. Ray shakes his head tries to put it out of his head: Frank's sounds, the sweat on Frank's neck and the memory of the other times this has...happened. Then Ray goes back inside and they vigorously ignore each other for a while.

While the shitty band is still playing and Ray is jammed up shoulder to shoulder with Bob, hiding out on the floor behind the soundboard, because there is just no saving this band, he hears Frank on the other side of Bob make noises about splitting early to get Wheat Thins for Mikey and make up for something before, he's gotta keep the peace with the roommates, dude, or else they do things like leave and stick you with the whole rent or hiding bandages in the fridge or something insane like that. Frank is insane. _Insane_ , and he never knows to ask for a fuck properly. The man just cannot get his act together and Ray is sure as hell glad he's got his shit sorted out way better than that short little punk.

The band wheezes out its last dying breathes, then Ray goes home and writes his heart out.

***  
**BOB**

"Jefferson, what the fuck."

"I told you and I told you, but does anyone listen? No and no, no one listens to me, I'm just the old fart you can kick around and keep not paying rent to because I'm too easy to push around! Fuck that! I'm pulling out of here and buying some condos in Miami."

"I thought it was more you could never find any other renters who'd take these shitholes off your hands."

"Shut up, boy!"

"Dude, you can't retire." Bob tries to see through the rage-haze and reason with the man instead. That's what he came here to do in the first place.

"Sure as fuck I can retire! Then I can listen to salsa music and mambo my way all through South Beach if I fuckin' want. No more of this cold shit for me, my doc says I'll fuckin' lose this leg if I don't get my sugar under control and stop smoking. The only way I'll stop smoking is if my bones stop aching in the cold, and then I can get some sugar from the hot mamacitas in Little Havana, alright? Nothing personal."

"That's fuckin', the fuckin' worst kind of sellout ever." Bob cannot believe his _life_.

"Bite your tongue, kid! You've been at that bar for how many years, you gotta know selling out is a joke to keep bands cheap and keep 'em coming back for more. Jesus, stop playing dumb. And maybe if you'd been more timely with your rent I'd've kept you on while I move down south, but nope! Not now, too late."

Bob gives up diplomacy and starts to swear, and Jefferson swears back at him, so Bob grits his teeth and gets out of there before he does something he'd regret. He's not going to hit an old man, but Jesus Almighty the guy is a loony-toons motormouth.

So Jefferson's definitely not going to hold the lease for the buildings on Barker Street anymore. His mind is already blown out of town and halfway to Miami, and he'll leave them in a jerk and sell their buildings off to some bigass, whitewashing real estate company that'll sell, like, lawnmowers or cutesy knick-knacks or something. Jesus. The neighborhood will never survive it.

Bob goes back to his bar, the _orgies anywhere at all_ addition to [the ruleboard](http://i48.photobucket.com/albums/f240/ichorkore/Picspam/SignatReggiesforTheBouncingSouls_do.jpg) peeling off, the bashed-up speakers and scarred bartop. He goes to one of the tables and sits in the dark, cracking his knuckles. He waits for Brian to find him like he has before.

***  
**BRIAN**

First he had to go through his accountant, and he really didn't want to pull strings but these were extenuating circumstances. He thought the woman appreciated keeping him on as a client as opposed to losing out to more, er, _incorporated_ business, so she pointed him in the right direction on taxes, along with recommending a financial adviser on the downlow whose license was only suspended temporarily, really, his knowledge was still as good as gold, she'd assured him.

So the plan is (theoretically) sound, but the follow-through could still collapse and leave them without a foundation to stand on. Without building to live in. Without a network of people to catch them, scattering them to other streets with bars and music instead of Barker Street. But nothing, _nothing_ , could be as good as what they've got, the connections they've made, the names they've drawn in the legacy of their part of Jersey. Shit, the threat losing the Barker Street Strip hurts more than he could have thought. The threat of losing his passion, losing his place, losing his friends to the wind.

Jesus, he's gonna keep waking up in sweats like this, isn't he?

"Yes, you will," Bob grunts in the morning, toweling off his hair. "But when I kick you, you quiet down a little. You want me to kick you more at night?"

"No, that's alright, I'll survive."

"Maybe you will. Maybe you."

Brian's heart clenches in his chest and sits straight up in bed. "Jesus, Bob. I've got enough nightmares as it is. Stop it."

Brian sees the darkness clouding in Bob's face and cuts it off before the mood can come to a head. "And why do I not even get first showers in my own place? That's not right, Bob."

"A lot of things aren't right now. I'm just rolling with the punches. Gotta keep up with all these new things happening."

"Bob," Brian sighs. He swings his legs over the side of the bed and puts his head in his hands. He feels an echo of last night's headache, ready to start anew today. But not now, not now, not now. "Bob, I need a shower first, okay? I've got the plans on the counter."

"I bought that shampoo you like," Bob gives back, expression still darker than usual and yeah, okay. Brian'll take the things he can get.

Brian raps on the table when he's come out to the kitchen. Bob is methodically frying bacon and toasting bread. "It'll work. It will. How many people want to help us? Everyone, right?"

Bob made more toast and bacon sandwiches.

Brian goes to Mikey first. The man can set things ablaze faster than anything even if he often doesn't stick around to see how things burn down. Mikey seemed amenable enough. Besides, he's the one who brought up having a specific plan in the first place.

***  
**FRANK**

The problem with staying focused is that there is only so long Frank can push himself before his fingers start twitching out of control, brain on the fritz, body heavy with needs and aches and reminders, like how pissing or washing his hair or eating a plate of sweet potato fries would be good right about now.

Yeah, right about now.

He takes off from practice and yells at his bros he'd see them tomorrow; they'd had a good couple solid hours, and earlier in the night he'd come off his bouncer job (what, what? I'll gladly punch a dude, fuck off Bob, stop laughing) and the grey morning is slowly creeping over the horizon, lightening the clouds. It's pretty in dingy way. Today Frank will enjoy sleeping through noon a whole fuck of a lot.

He feels much better and less dizzy with a pile of fries and a cup of coffee in him, and picking his teeth, sitting in his awesome favorite diner. He should call Ma about the potluck on Sunday and visit Uncle Eddie to see how he's doing, what he'd think of the new chorus. He should call Mikey and see if he needs help with that thing Brian asked him to do, get some details on that. He should rewrap his knuckles.

He should go see Ray.

No. _No_. He should not go see Ray. Seeing Ray is the last thing Frank needs to do. Seeing Ray brings up funny feelings Frank does not deal with and will not deal with, ever. Seeing with Ray, lately, has almost always lead to fucking with Ray, which in turn has lead to Ray fucking _him_. Afterwards Frank feels so glad and so full of it he gets to swooning like a schoolgirl and getting way too comfortable looking Ray right in the eye and _almostnearly_ asking him back to Frank's place, or to Ray's place. Which would be...bad. And lead to more fucking. And more upwellings of fluffy emotions Frank does not fucking understand. He's a man, goddamnit. What happened to no-strings hookups in strangers' bathrooms? Frank can't fucking believe his life has come to this. Ray's a fucking jerkass with a bone to pick with everyone and especially with Frank.

He bites his nails further down to nubs, and drinks more coffee.

He goes to see Ray.

He only rings the doorbell once and Ray comes out squinting in the sunlight. "Shit, morning already? Fuck."

"Got writing?"

"Hell yeah. What the fuck you doing here? Too sapped from your band?"

"Shut your mouth. Here's your fucking g-string, motherfucker," Frank says, and throws the box in Ray's face. He goes inside. "That's like, ten g-strings. Now you owe me. Where's your Stellar?"

"If you break anything, I will kill you. I'm not joking," Ray says seriously. "Don't fucking lift anything off me either, asshole. I'll mess you up."

Then Ray goes back to typing madly in a songbook and fiddling with a bunch of mix levels and melodies with his acoustic hookup. Frank picks up the Stellar and noodles around with it, feeling out the vibrations, his brain filling in the parts where he knows it sounds like plugged in and on full blast. He nicks his cuticles and bleeds a little. He gnaws on his fingers for a while in between strumming.

He looks up and has no idea how long Ray had been sitting there, watching. Frank pulls his fingers out of his mouth with a smack and is instantly annoyed.

Ray scoffs, "Your band still not putting out like a bunch of pussies? I told you."

"You still not have a record finished, let alone a few full songs? I told _you_."

Ray sets aside the acoustic. The cool strumming calm is gone, Frank's blood is up and he's not sure which way it should go, but he carefully puts the electric back onto its stand.

"You can't fight me here. Too many fucking beauties."

"Yeah, right?" Ray says, but it's an affirmation, a prideful, joyful sound while looking around at his guitars.

He takes Frank back to his bedroom instead, and Frank clutches Ray's t-shirt the whole time, in turns annoyed and calmed and shoving himself again's Ray's warm body. The sun comes through in thin lines behind window blinds before Frank finally closes his eyes.

***  
**GERARD**

"Okay, so here's the deal," Lyn-Z says bossily, ushering him in front of the covered-up area she's sequestered off. "I talk, you listen. No interruptions!"

"Yeah right."

"I will fucking punch you, motherfucker."

"Jesus Christ!"

"Just let me fucking present to you, fuck!"

"Alright, alright! Keep your fucking panties on."

"You have no say-so with anything to do with my panties."

"Whatever, Jesus! Didn't we have something to do here?"

"Yes. The question is, are you ready for it?" She smirks insufferably, and Gerard is ready to stomp back to his own easel and lay down a sketch of Lyn-Z getting eaten by glittery vampires who don't fall apart on command.

"Okay, here we go!" she declares, and pulls back the curtain, hooks it to one side.

Gerard is surprised to be surprised. There's a pretty cool paper product display. It's a...yes, a diorama, but not a carosal of depressing death like he's seen before, all black mesh and stiff marching figures heading towards a bombed-out city skyline. This time it's a march of people to a funeral, but there's also psychedelic trees and paper people wearing tiny, intricate bird masks and representations of different coffins, some scaled way too large and some way too small, all caskets with different intricate designs on them. There are a ton of different colors of paper. It's a world away from the black death march.

Gerard's shocked.

"That last exhibit was actually what I'd done months and months before. Just trying to clear stuff out for the new batch." She points out the different color scheme, the sizes, how no one has distinguishable faces. "It's my death, but as a rebirth, as I'm alive now, a reminder to enjoy life in all the ways contrary to death. It's a problem, the not-living thing. There's a difference between have a life and living it, you know. I needed a reminder. This helped a lot."

"That's...that's, wow. I uh. I think I get it." He points out the bird-people. "What's up with that?" She launches into a spiel like she's been waiting to talk about it for a while, about death as metaphorical freedom and release and a joyful event, and her dealing with her own mortality, "...so I'm not fucking depressed and suicidal. Shut up, I think your mental state is more whacked-out with all the vampires and zombies, asshole," she says snidely, and Gerard cocks his hand on his hip, ready to argue, because _fuck that_ , he is not a nutcase. Much. Anymore. The new drugs from the doc help.

She pulls her hair through her hands and tosses it over one shoulder, like girls like to do, and he gets distracted until she delicately slides the miniature mask off the miniature person, and reveals the blank face on the body. "See? Death as a mask, death as freedom, maybe a party. Hmm. Haven't figured that part out just yet, but the masks are definitely important. It looks super-cool though."

Yeah, it does, and okay, her diorama is maybe more engaging than Gerard first thought, all the little niggly details that make his fingers hurt just to look at them. Then she tips the mask over in her hands at a certain angle, and Gerard has a brainburst, energy ticking over jaggedly in his brain. He follows the thought down until he catches it and it just tumbles out of his mouth. "Reminds of those Day of the Dead masks. They're more like, painted on instead of constructed, unless they're the really elaborate ones. I've got a couple in my mom's basement, you should totally see them to compare, balance out the piece," and he waves at a couple unfinished spots. He looks up, and she's tilted her head at him quizzically.

"That's...not a bad idea," she says slowly, like she's waiting for the other shoe to to drop. "If you bring them, I'd like to see them." She looks at him out of the corner of her eye, and Gerard feels suddenly really self-conscious, like he's back at school and being judged at a competition or something.

Lyn-Z rouses herself. "So anyway, the point is, this thing totally needs more glitter, or at least shimmer sand to glue in place. The right amount of festivity, ethereal quality too. As spirals, or as grave mounts, or to circle the designs on the masks. It needs the extra oomph. I think it'd work perfectly. I only really want to use a couple different black glitters and white shimmer sand. That shouldn't be as hard to bear if, and this is a remote chance, they got into your wet work."

He looks up, and Lyn-Z's not smirking at him anymore. Just an honest kind of appreciation and head-tilting appraisal and okay, Gerard gets that exact same look when he's assessing what works for his painting and what doesn't.

"It's...maybe. It's maybe a good idea," Gerard relents, and asks anxiously about her vacuuming up the shimmer sand too.

"What about you? It's not like you ever cleaned up all that red paint that got everywhere. It looks like we killed Bozo the Clown in here. All the bottoms of my shoes are tinted red!"

"Red flakes do not detract from any of the schemes in my work," Gerard sniffs. Mikey eventually had kicked over that pail of red paint when it was open. Kind of inevitable, really. The effect of tracking paint flakes outside the studio wasn't as dramatic as he's hoped.

"Fine. Spill as much paint as you want and don't clean it up, but I am totally bringing my glitter in here for this project."

Gerard narrows his eyes at her.

She squints back at him.

They shake on it.

***  
**LYN-Z**

"I heard Bob's gonna lose his bar. Sucks," Chantal says. She adjusts her suspenders around her boobs and pats herself down, checking her sides in the mirror. "He got another place lined up?"

"Haven't got a clue. I don't really go there much," Lyn-Z replies. She floofs up her hair and then scratches through her scalp. Feels nice. She's still way too grody from spending all her time gluing shit onto her dioramas in the hopes that Gerard won't change his mind. Besides, showers were overrated. They get back out to the bar and Chantal picks up the drinks for the blue-haired little ladies across the room playing a vicious round of pinochle. 

"Yeah, heard about that. Jefferson's really not happy about it, but what are you gonna do? If you could leave Jersey for Florida, wouldn't you?"

"No," chorus Lyn-Z and Steve. She totally fistbumps him for that.

"I could try to see his side of the story, maybe butter him up," Jimmy offers, but really, why the fuck would Jimmy do that? "I'm a very persuasive man! I could persuade you to do all sorts of things." He winks and Chantal slaps his back on her next breeze past, this time heading towards the bald poker players with hats at jaunty angles. God, Lyn-Z loves old people. They're even weirder than her friends. 

That cap with a green and magenta feather in it, actually, is giving her ideas, and she tucks it away for further use. Feathered friends, feathered masks, feathers, the shape and sharpness and lightness of them. Yeah, she could totally work more of that into the masks Gerard had brought up too. At this point the diorama was elaborate and had taken up so much more time than she'd first intended that a couple more changes wouldn't shorten the timetable until exhibition much longer. Also, she's still stoked about Johnny Fanx liking her style and giving her some artistic advising experience. Good stuff. 

She says at much to Steve, and he claps his hand to his heart. "But you're ruining little Gerard's life! He will perish from lack of having attention for ten minutes." She snorts. "In fact, you'd better leave right now and give him some attention, or he'll die of dick rot or gangrene from blue balls or something."

"Are you trying to gross me out? Because I will win against you on a gross-out contest. We've been over this a million times."

"That has yet to be decided since you defaulted at the last contest," Steve declares. "Have you not noticed the huge boner Gerard has for you?"

"Torch. He's carrying a torch. It's more poetic," Jimmy adds, emptying his drink.

"Bone-eeeer," Steve drawls, and Lyn-Z laughs. 

"I'm surrounded by morons! I should go join my other fellow sophisticates," Jimmy drawls, and sits down with the bunch of poker players. He high-fives an old hippie-looking dude, and Chantal comes over to lay a kiss on him and take the men's glasses. 

"Twoo wuv," Steve coos right in Lyn-Z's ear, and she jerks back, slapping reflexively.

"Jesus fuck, how does an immature ass like you work in a bank?"

"Everyone knows _financiers_ are crazy, dude." He trills on the title, then launches into the latest story of the crazy saboteurs circling like sharks between cubicles and the latest estate fund that was full of backstabbing divorcees, illicit mongoose-trading, and a quart of invisible ink. Lyn-Z reconsiders that maybe it's just rich people who're crazy. 

Lyn-Z smiles, and Steve is waving exaggeratedly and talking about penis pumps, and Chantal is doing the macarena with a blue-haired lady, and Jimmy is moaning in defeat as the hippie gets backslaps from the other old guys. Lyn-Z stands back, stretching, comfortable busy ache in her body from standing for hours, crouching over a desk cutting construction paper to pieces, and cat-eyed in pleasure at the company. She fucking loves her friends, and old people night at Delancey's is a friendly time.

Later, days later, tiredly hungover and wearing sterile gloves while tamping down the sand on her diorama, she's wondering whether or not the Gerard thing has any merit.

"That...looks interesting," comes out nasally behind her, and Lyn-Z starts, settling onto her haunches quickly. Gerard is looming over her and stumbling back at the motion. "Ah, um, sorry."

"What? Not too busy right now?" He shrugs. Lyn-Z is tired of pussyfooting around. 

"Sooo, Steve says you've got a huge boner for me that you're having trouble hiding since you won't quit needling me. Is that true, or am I going to stuff his ears full of scrap paper?"

Gerard's mouth drops open; his eye bulge a little and it's a really unbecoming look for him. He snaps his jaw shut and stutters out something incomprehensible before storming out of the studio.

Lyn-Z actually can't tell if it's true or if she's just offended his delicate sensibilities. It's not like she's ready to strip him down and ride him into the paint-stained floor, although, actually...hunh. 

Gerard comes back inside muttering to himself and brandishing a box. "Here," he says dully and offers it to her. She opens it; it's the Day of the Dead mask Gerard was talking about. It's pretty fearful, all black and grey whorls with a clenched leer. He goes on, "Might be inspirational. Or maybe you could shove it up your ass, whatever you want."

She wrinkles her nose up disdainfully. "Ugh. This is so fucking middle school."

Gerard flings his hands up and glares. "Well what the fuck do you want from me? You get your glitter and your big art film debut, whoop de fucken do, Johnny fucking Fanx loves you even though you don't know his work half as well as me-"

"Hey!" Lyn-Z's taken aback. "Excuse me? I know who he is and what he does, thank you very fucking much. It's a helluva lot better than moping around drawing guts and blood over and over again and still selling a shit load more stuff than me, and _still moping about it_. Get over yourself."

He steps forward and back, hands outstretched, and then finally steps back and yells, "Aaargh!" really dramatically. Lyn-Z runs her hands wildly through her hair and thinks about Indian rugburns and starting a pinching fight.

Then she stops.

Lyn-Z shifts back on her heels. She is kind of shocked at herself for devolving this quickly around him yet again. It's like she can't keep her temper on hold with this ornery, pretty dude around her. It's like she really is in middle school again and annoyed with herself for crushing on the moody basketball star. She puts the box down on her desk and puts on her bitchiest face.

"Really? Are we really going to keep doing this?"

He huffs about for a minute then says, "I guess we really are. Unless you wanna do something about it differently. I hate going in fucking circles." Big, determined eyes now and a tense mouth. Revealing. 

He's surprising her again. Lyn-Z chews on her tongue, mind whirling. Well. This is...completely...an unexpected occurrence, the backing down and acknowledgment part. Usually they just storm away from each other until the next argument boils up between them again. Surprising. Gerard keeps brushing his bangs out of his face, and he's all paint-flecked and grimy and big big eyes and exasperated mouth and...ah, fuck.

"I guess not," she sighs in resignation. "You're too hot to keep doing this with."

His mouth makes a little surprised "oh". 

"Oh my god. If you get a big head about this, I will seriously deck you. I'm totally serious, dickhead."

He looks even more surprised, mouths "dickhead?" to himself, and oh god, middle school is still coming on thick and strong, and then-

"There's a Rocky Horror show in a couple days?" he hazards. He keeps looking perplexed, like he's confused with himself too, and nervously brushes his bangs out of his eyes. He looks terribly pretty like that, Jesus. This is probably a dumb idea but Lyn-Z's ready to do it anyway.

They blink at each other for a minute when Lyn-Z agrees, and she turns back to her work, scratching rubber cement off her arms contemplating the next step, trying to find her balance again. Gerard's busying himself with a canvas too, but she sees the back of his neck going red. 

 

***  
**BOB**

"I can't believe we're doing this."

"It's worth a shot! Beverly thinks it's a good idea, it's worked for other charities in the past, and don't get me fucking wrong, Bob, we've got businesses, but I won't shy away from fucking donations to keep our places running. They're our places, _ours_."

"Sure," Bob agrees.

"No, you've gotta realize, this isn't about us, it's about everyone here, it's about-" Brian interrupts himself. "No, of course you realize, I'm sorry."

Bob bumps their shoulders together. Brian bumps him back, and exhales loudly. "We've got a chance," he says.

Bob severely doubts they have a chance, as it is. The fundraiser is a nice idea, but it won't help them limp along to pay their backdated rent, let alone go up bidding against an actual real estate buyer who knows what they're doing. 

Brian looks good making plans and setting things up, though, gesturing emphatically and believing in something. He seems more grounded and not a sketchy outline of himself, withdrawn, goal-less. Bob runs his fingers along Brian's forearm, and Brian lets him stay there.

"Yeah, sure, we'll do it. I'll host it," Bob says, and hopes it doesn't put him any further in the red than he already is. Brian cracks open a small grin, and he just shines, right there in the backroom of his store, all the surroundings dim and full of dust and the smell of oil residue from the street. He's full of belief and shaky hope, and Bob likes following Brian down to whatever ends he leads. Brian hasn't given up hope yet, even if Bob mostly has; Bob'll hang on to the edges of it, just for love's sake. 

Bob frets a lot about the idea Brian came up with, talks through it for a while, and then for better or for worse, it raises his hopes raise a little. Not too much, he's not expecting a miracle, but it has the tiniest chance of working and Brian hasn't given up hope yet, so Bob won't either.

 

***  
**GERARD**

He wears all black. Well, of course he does. The whole costume thing is out of the question though, because how fucking high school is that? He is not in fucking high school anymore. 

Obviously. 

And he's not a moron, so he doesn't buy popcorn either, not from the concession and not the homemade caramel balls from the Dr. Frank-N-Furter inside the theater that could have acid or coke or dead bugs in them. Food is not the point of this...meeting. The point is so that Gerard will do this with her, most likely in complete silence and resentment once he remembers how fucking obnoxious and full of interruptions Lyn-Z is, who will probably tell him what is happening as it happens even though that is completely fucking unnecessary for anyone ever at a Rocky Horror show. Then they'll come to their senses and leave separately. Gerard has decided how this is going to happen. 

She shows up in black too, not looking any different than usual. Her hair's clean, at least. Maybe Gerard's is too, whatever, sitting next to smelly people in a theater for two hours isn't fun for anyone, so he's just being courteous to everyone else there even though his neighbors will probably stink of weed or Bubble Yum. 

They hover around each other and he keeps sliding around the chance of looking directly at her. She might take that as an attack and pounce on him to start an argument before the show even begins. Once it gets started, Gerard gets distracted by the other people in costume going up before the screen and re-enacting, lots of sashays and hip-swinging and boas, and huh, that shape would actually be something interesting to play around with, snake-like and puffy-soft at the same time. He tucks the thought away for further references.

"Oh, wow," Lyn-Z says quietly, and lord, here it begins. Whatever, he can deal.

"What?"

"That girl in the tiara has cool garters."

Gerard looks. "Oh, yeah. That's true. Are those rhinestones?"

"Looks like. Hey, what about adding rhinestones into my funeral piece?" Gerard wrinkles up his nose, and she scrunches her face up too. It's cute. "You just haven't been convinced that all that glitters is awesome. You must have missed that class in college."

"I'm don't want to see fucking sparkles everywhere. That's like, depressingly gaudy."

A lady with a magnificent fluffy feather boa and a tux full of sequins sashays up to the stage. "No, _that_ is what gaudy looks like." Lyn-Z shudders happily and shakes her head, and Gerard viciously disagrees, because that tux with a certain amount of accents could look good, and Lyn-Z declares a discussion of glam is off-limits during a Rocky Horror showing, and Gerard agrees because he can argue with her much better in a quieter place later. Then they start critiquing the styles on a scale of hideous to awesome, and they both agree weakest musical number is the wedding one at the beginning, which may have been the point of it all. 

The lady in the sequin suit flops down in the chair next to Lyn-Z while Dr. Frank-N-Furter becomes an axe-murderer, and her feather boa is fluffing up everywhere and Lyn-Z giggles as it brushes against her. She scoots away so the fluff isn't all in her face, and their hands brush along the cup holder. Gerard surprises himself (again! what is going on?) by not freezing up and not leaning back. Her forearm folds over his on the arm rest and her hand dangles nearer to his knee. 

"Nine," Lyn-Z mutters. "That's definitely a nine."

"Five," Gerard disagrees. "Are you seeing what I'm seeing? He not even trying to look like a hunchback, and his face isn't grey enough."

She leans closer to his shoulder to squint at the Riff Raff impostor across the aisle, and dammit, he's getting the familiar fluttery pulse. He is not on a date. He's on a mission to prove that he can totally handle himself around Lyn-Z without losing his temper or stalking off in a huff, which Mikey has informed him is also a form of losing his temper. Besides, Lyn-Z is a little too hot for him and has enough hard edges that it'd be dangerous to get any kind of grip on her. Plus she's wearing a studded cuff and five rings, so if he made a move on her she could fuck him up pretty badly.

"He's got the right gloves though."

"Pants aren't short enough."

"Hair is long enough though. Think it's a wig?"

"I really hope it is," he whisper-laughs, because that's _ridiculous_ , and she laughs too, and goddamn. He can feel her breath across his jaw, wispy and tantalizing. Okay, she's definitely too close and his pulse is starting to pound in his ears.

Lyn-Z cuts off his confusion with her lips on his cheek. Gerard stops breathing for a moment, then turn into her, and the feel of her mouth on his makes him more aware of the audience around him, not less.

He breaks off. "I, um. There are _people_ ," he complains.

She hiss-laughs again. "That couple in the row in front of us has been making out since the beginning. Have you noticed them?"

"Uh, no," he says. Her eyebrows turn up. "Oh, right," and he leans in. It's all short, brief kisses until she sucks on his bottom lip and Gerard gasps. She pulls his tongue into her mouth and all awareness abruptly slams into the heat in Lyn-Z's mouth, her arms, body heat through her shirt. He pushes forward and gets jabbed in the waist by the arm rest, concentrates on kissing instead.

He hears a little murmuring sound from her, and holy fuck, digs in deeper for more of that. She puts her hands on his face, and he fumbles the arm rest up and wraps his arms around her. She's pressing him back into the seats this time, and playing with the front of his hair, and this is exactly nothing like high school because he never kissed a girl in a movie theater before, ever, not then or now, except he totally is now, apparently. Lyn-Z murmurs more and breaks away to pant, nose on the side of his jaw, and he's all breathless sighs, because _holy fuck_. She is all hot heat lined up against him and he can feel her breasts pressed to his chest. Jesus fuck. The angle's awkward, but he tightens his grip on her back and she shifts up to catch his mouth again.

Eventually there's a roar and applause, and Gerard breaks away just enough to look behind Lyn-Z to see the boa lady cheering and getting up to leave. Then Lyn-Z's leaning back and wiping her chin, and lipstick is smeared around her mouth. 

Gerard's a little too flustered and amazed to get embarrassed (much). "I've got lipstick on my face, don't I?"

Lyn-Z grins. "Now you fit in with the crowd better." 

They wipe each other off and exit the theater, and Lyn-Z's smiling slightly, not a smirk, just sweet, and now Gerard's wiping sweaty palms against his jeans. 

This did not go according to plan at all.

At _all_.

Lyn-Z walks Gerard to his car (Mikey's car) without saying much ("you're parked way further back than me, it's not safe to go alone"), and he notices she's got her hands in her pockets and hunched over the same as him.

"Well, okay, bye," she says, and brushes her lips against his cheek, leaving Gerard huddled against the door and breathless. 

***  
**MIKEY**

In short, Mikey predicts failure. Lots and lots of failure. 

Brian's idea from his financial people (really, Brian has enough finances to have financial people? Mikey's impressed) is to have a fundraiser of bands playing at Bob's and an entrance fee going to support them. But really, a few nights of fundraiser playing is not going to put a dent in the debt, like a few icicles thrown in to cool down hell.

Too many bands and too much drinking and too much of a maudlin atmosphere on the cause of the impending loss of Barker Street to keep anyone's spirits up. Mikey thinks the tone will be rough and bloody, and he intends to show his face for a suitable amount of time during a funeral, submit his contribution to the charity jar, and then get the fuck out before it gets messy. Mikey gets injured enough from his other nighttime activities, he doesn't need to add in fighting too.

***  
**FRANK**

So the point is, the whole charade is just a gigantic fucking waste of time and he doesn't even know how he got dragged into this sort of thing. Well, Mikey had dared him to go and drink more than him, and of fucking course Frank couldn't turn that down. Well, Ray was there too, but Frank was busy not focusing on that. 

The point is that everyone drinks, and some but not not enough people pay, and it's actually a little too like a mob to try to enforce that kind of thing, like payment from large and scary dudes (who Frank could still totally take in a fight, don't get him wrong), and whose great idea was this anyway? 

"Someone said something about a fundraiser, like a bake sale?" Gerard says confusedly. 

"This ain't no fucking church picnic, what the fuck," Frank says, and then he has to wrench his hand out from under a couple making out and slamming into the wall next to him. 

The band is, actually, pretty fucking good, kind of pop-rock but killing the guitar licks anyways, and the singer is this amazing hotass chick with short spiky hair and a Caribbean accent. She's got motorcycle gloves on, and Frank is totally ready to do her on her on that fact alone. For no good reason at all, Ray's face pops into his head and suddenly he feels guilty. Fuck that, he can fuck anyone he wants and Ray's got nothing to do with it. He wants to get into a fight just to punch that feeling out, but it's Bob's weird-ass charity event for some charity he doesn't even know, so no, not tonight. Frank gets hammered instead. 

At the end of the set the singer whoops and calls Bob Briar up to the set, raises his hand in a fistpump, and Bob does his Rocky thing and steps down hurriedly for a metal band next.

It gets way too fucking loud after that.

A not small amount of actual biker-looking dudes roll up, and now Frank really wants to know who Mikey's been talking to lately to bring them by, which is really when shit hits the fan, because-

"You did not just fucking say that. Get your hands out of the tip jar, out! Out!" Bob actually yells, and woah. Frank would not pit even a crew of bikers against an angry Bob. He ushers a bunch of them out, and Brian is glaring really hard and being pretty intimidating too, and that kick-starts the wave of people leaving.

"Why the fuck did we do this anyway? I didn't think Bob did charity. What did we raise money for again?" 

Frank receives a ton of stares. "What? Like I care about a bunch of, I don't know, homeless people or a shelter or whatever. I was just here for the drinks and 'cause Mikey said so, fuck."

Ray shakes his head and walks away, Matt says, "Fucking _dumbass_ ," and Mikey stops eyefucking a lanky guy across the room, goes wide-eyed and says, "Duuude. Do not let Bob hear you, okay." He pulls Frank off to the side to explain. 

Wow. No one tells Frank anything, apparently. Mikey tugs his arm and tells him not to be more of a dumbass at Bob's depressing going-away party.

"No, but this is a fundraiser, you just said..?"

"Look around, smart guy. How many funds do you think we're raising?" Mikey looks startlingly grim. And Frank is...Frank agrees. They're all kids and roadies and locals left, and a loud angry band over a cold concrete floor. 

Frank gets the point.

"Well fuck, I'm still not drunk enough for this," he says and goes shoulder to shoulder with Matt foaming out drinks behind the bar. 

***  
**RAY**

Ray is absolutely ripping it up. So he kind of like, caved, had the urge to go up and perform instead of just writing. It happens sometimes. He likes the nitty-gritty feel even if he can't control every single thing about the production because sometimes the speakers aren't worth the wires they're made of and sometimes the bassist is off-tune and hurts his ears or the drums are way too loud and he can't signal to turn them down because the sound guy's either a shithead or completely absent.

So yeah. Performing: not always his favorite thing, but he's a fucking professional musician, dammit, and he needs to play sometimes. Everyone has urges, and musicians get weirder urges than the norm, whatever. He fills in a gig for a friend of a friend of Mikey's at Eyeball, just because he can and to prove he is such a badass that he can show up their regular guitarist who's busy being doped up on a bender.

It's hot up there, and he can see most of the (not large) crowd. Ray definitely sounds better than whatever usual schlub is up there, mostly because he's awesome and also not high, which is more than he can say for the other three fourths of the band.

Near the end there's a big mess near the back of the crowd, and in the murmurs and stage patter before the last song Ray hear the flesh-on-flesh smacks of fighting and finally some big dude wades in and throws the guys out before they've finished the set. Ray pulls down his gear, body humming and mind drifting after all his focus was sapped by the gig. The band snaps at him for not helping them tear down, but fuck that, he doesn't owe them squat. He takes his own case and splits. 

Ray runs into a familiar face outside. The guy's all bloody and crazy-eyed though.

"What the fuck, Iero. Did you think turning yourself into a human meat patty would attract all the girls?"

"Suck my dick, Toro."

"No, see _I'm_ the only one who's a good musician around here, so I'll be the one getting head."

"Yeah, maybe," Iero says, and Ray double-takes. Frank spits blood out the side of his mouth.

"What the fuck is wrong with you?"

Frank glares and doesn't answer. Ray doesn't care, okay, he doesn't care _that_ much, but the guy looks bad. "I don't have all fucking day. Say it or don't, and stop pouting about it."

"I'm not. My uncle's in the hospital." It all comes out at once, no extra stress on any word, like he's talking about microwaving a pizza too long and burning the roof of his mouth.

Ray plays it cool. "What, and you wanted to join him?"

"No. And no. Don't have a car."

Ray stops. There are only a few ways to interpret that. He takes a minute to deliberate. He scuffs up some dirt on Frank's shoes, and the guy still doesn't move. Ray pushes down on morbidity and goes with the best choice.

"You're a moron, and you're drooling blood everywhere. Need to get you to the ER anyway. Get in my car." Ray turns and doesn't wait, and then throws Frank the finger just to make sure his intentions stay suitably gruff.

Frank follows after that. Ray drives Matt's borrowed car to go to the hospital, and the doc stitches Frank up, and they go visit Frank's uncle in the south ward. Frank's laugh sounds raw when his Uncle Eddie says seeing him there makes his heart feel as good as new, and Ray introduces himself and makes awkward conversation until Frank's Ma comes by to shake Ray's hand in thanks and take Frank home.

Ray doesn't have a choice after that. He goes home and writes more songs about bloody knuckles and guts wearing out and heartache.

***  
**LYN-Z**

They're at the studio, again, as always, and there've been surreptitious lunches at places Lyn-Z knows her friends will never go to, and they've had a couple arguments in public about queercore and the relevance of Bosch where no one called security on them. Even after the latest heated conversation (but not a fight; it's tipped over to not-fighting, whatever overtone of hurtfulness has drained right out of Gerard after Rocky Horror, and Lyn-Z feels compelled to follow suit), he still grabbed her hand walking to the parking meter, and she'd felt like doing nothing more than hanging on and squeezing him back. Then there was a hand-squeeze war for a while. 

Then there've been the furious kissing sessions where Gerard's hands roam and roam and roam but reassuringly, somehow, never leave her body and hold her close always, and that fact feels amazingly good. A lot of this is more unexpected and comforting than she expects. Gerard gives good hugs, for one, and she's continually surprised by how much she wants them. The obvious fright and vulnerability he shows her is a surprise too, when she's normally seen him as an ornery crankyface.

He's _shaking_ for long minutes after she's invited him to see her get the latest tattoo finished, and it dawns on her that this was the worst date idea ever. "You know, this would work a lot better if you told me stuff." She's holding her forearm carefully away from her body, the snarky little black cat _finally_ put where it should be on her skin, making her feel whole and fully realized and happy -and also exasperated with Gerard going white and clutching his knees. He didn't have to come; Lyn-Z would have understood getting turned down.

"I just need a little longer. Um. To breathe."

"To not throw up?"

"...to not throw up," he agrees. He looks green around the edges, paler than usual and his eyes are watery. She takes pity and brings him home with her. They scooch around her cramped apartment sucking on Fudgesicles and talking about Dick Grayson versus Tim Drake while Gerard calms down.

Then Kitty busts into the living room and yells about finding her cat, where did she last put her cat, Lyn-Z?

"I have no idea, near the sink?"

"No! He wouldn't have lasted nearly long enough in there. Someplace less humid." Kitty spots Gerard and points an imperious finger at him.

"Ha, are you that guy? Yes, you are. Okay, follow me and don't drop anything I throw at you. Let's go!" Gerard is still off his game and wide-eyed and stammers he's not a good catch. Kitty snorts, "Ha, you bet you're not," and Lyn-Z startles herself by scowling. Gerard has missed this interaction and still picks up what Kitty flings at him -magazines and towels and law journals- until she's found her carved wooden cat, perched on the bookshelf covered by a tie-dye blanket. Kitty blows out of there on a rampage about incompetent legal aides, and Gerard is left standing in the middle of their living room, Lyn-Z lounging over the kitchen table. 

"Hunh. That went well," she muses after a minute. Gerard carefully places the various collected items on the couch for safekeeping. "I'm surprised you didn't snap and yell at her to fix her own problems and find her own goddamn cat."

"Well, I would have! But I don't know her." Lyn-Z raises an eyebrow. "I can't yell at people I don't know. That's rude." Lyn-Z crosses her arms, and Gerard covers his face and mumbles exasperatedly, "Um, I'm not good with girls." 

"No, really? Tell me more!"

Gerard throws up his hands and Lyn-Z laughs at him, kisses his nose (they both get a little wide-eyed at that) and then she makes him help her organize her bookshelf. He looks askance at her for all the floral arrangement manuals but gushes about Geiger, so hah, he has no room to tease her about her own morbid fascinations with paper funerals. 

Gerard stays for eleven o'clock coffee and nervously watches her change the wrapping over the tattoo. He's startled when she tells him to hold the ointment jar at a good angle for her to use, but he doesn't run away. "Why didn't you tell me you were freaked out? You could have bailed."

"It's kind of embarrassing."

"Mmm, hasn't stopped you before." Gerard opens and closes his mouth at that. "Hey, did I tell you I have a phobia about boats?" Gerard doesn't believe her, so she has to explain about her great-uncle the part-time mariner, and a terrible fishing trip involving much more cod than the world would ever need, and Gerard is smiling at the end of it.

"Hey, so it's kind of late? We're both night owls, but still." She is not going to mention him sleeping here, because they're not really there yet, and fortunately Gerard doesn't go there either.

"Um, I don't have a car here. You kind of drove me. I kind of don't have a car at all?"

Lyn-Z grins at him, his shoulders up by his ears, and drives him home in her PJs. 

It keeps going on like that, weirdness and morbidity and heated debates and the unforeseen attraction of watching him sink into her life, a little bit, more than he had been, and she into his. Mostly she sees his brother and that bar they like a lot more even as it's closing down, and they explores crazy knick-knack joints he's found via Mikey. There's still something strangely comforting about it all, holding Gerard's blunt-fingered hand and feeling his swoopy black hair brushing her cheek she talks over his shoulder, as she points something out.

They fuck for the first time in the studio in the middle of the afternoon when it's all watery sunshine and the door's unlocked so anyone could come in, Mikey with a bag of fries and a milkshake or Kitty and Chantal with gossip from the city.

They blow in through the doors late, super-late, because she'd stayed up too long talking with Jimmy about boyfriends and swapping sex tips and him laughing at Lyn-Z when she said they hadn't screwed yet. "What are you waiting for, the apocalypse?" She'd shoved him off the stool for being a dickhead. It was just, she was getting to be comfortable, more relaxed around Gerard now, not as wary even though she'd started to get crazy anxious anytime they were close together, because hell, she could _feel_ him, all the time. Feel his heat and the earnest weight of his stare, and she knew the shape and heft of his body, knew exactly how he'd hold her if she asked him. He'd probably argue with her about something at the same time too. It's all fucking overwhelming. She'd maybe been thinking about it in the shower after Jimmy mentioned it.

She doesn't hear what Gerard's excuse is for being late. 

He shakes wet hair out of his eyes and he smells clean for once, fluttered his hands in the air and huffing about Johnny Fanx passing up Gerard's RSVP _again_ , what the fuck, he's almost not a fan of the douchebag anymore, and he rubs his temples sighing gustily, closing his eyes.

Lyn-Z doesn't know which part set her off. She crashes into him and curls her hands around his jaw. Gerard gasps and looks as startled as anything, then wraps his arms around her and moans. They make it to the floor, and Lyn-Z straddles him and doesn't let go. He attacks her neck and Lyn-Z breathes in his hair, _clean clean clean_ , and it's so different than what she's used to, and he's just as eager as she is, which is still astonishing. 

"You waited until now?" Gerard murmurs shakily. 

"Oh, screw you."

"Well," he says, and she laughs nervously into his shoulder. 

Lyn-Z rocks her hips against him until she feels his hard-on pressed to her thigh, and she feels hungry, suddenly, so starved and aching for it. She groans and pulls his hair. Gerard pushes back and looks into her face, bewildered; he doesn't let her go at all. She unzips their pants and pushes him down, and he's blinking up muzzily at her the whole time.

"Oh, for fuck's sake," Lyn-Z whispers when she finally gets him inside her. He feels hard and perfect and tastes exactly the way he should. She grips his familiar shoulders and moves, strokes it out on her own. Gerard's face is heartbreaking, and it's sweet, it's all so unexpectedly sweet, she could cry.

"Fucking crazy," he breathes, and helps her move on top of him as she squeaks agreement. He strokes her out until she's coming and crying out and scratching his arms, heat and breath and his body between her thighs too good to let go.

It's a huge surprise as much as anything with them is, when they're left just gasping and staring at each other all _what the fuck_. Lyn-Z breathes into his hair and he's trembling for a little while before they separate. Then they spot the paint Gerard never cleaned up has flaked all over their skin. Gerard gripes about it before his face falls and he runs anxiously to check the pail and make sure the paint is non-toxic and non-irritable to sensitive skin. Lyn-Z laughs sprawled out on the floor and says her next piece will be called Gonads on Fire.

Eventually they get up and clean up in the bathroom. Lyn-Z opens the windows and they get back to work, even though Gerard does hover over her, brushing hands over the nape of her neck a few times. She sighs. She doesn't want him to leave.

So she brings him over to Delancey's for her shift that night and they argue the whole way there until Gerard chokes on his coffee when Jimmy drops a bomb.

"Holy shit, how do you even know Jefferson?" Gerard exclaims, aghast. 

"From around. The _usual_ ," Jimmy says haughtily. 

"They both come in on poker night and Jimmy tries to cheat," Chantal answers.

"Shit, honey, you're giving away all my secrets," Jimmy says, forehead creasing up and putting a finger to his lips. 

Gerard's mouth is hanging open. "But you -you could talk to him. Tell him not to sell out the street!"

"You're our only hope, Jimmy-Wan," Lyn-Z adds. "We've been trying to convince him, but it hasn't worked so far. Jefferson really, really doesn't like the rest of us."

"Well, you did drop those mixers on his head once."

"I still maintain that loser deserved it," Lyn-Z sniffs.

Gerard wavess dramatically. "But you could... have people fawning at your feet and throwing you flowers! Brian would love you forever and Bob'd give you free drinks all the time."

"Oh my god, could I have people fawning at my feet and throwing me flowers?" Jimmy parrots back sarcastically. Gerard says _he'll_ throw flowers if anything. "What's it to you? You don't like the bar that much, do you?"

"It's...alright. And there's a chance the studio could get sold out next if this happens, we're not far from Barker Street. And my brother might stick around if the street stays, whatever." Gerard shrugs, going for off-handed, but Jimmy spots the gleam of desperation and the visible appeal of having a bunch of artists indebted to him for wild future ventures. Lyn-Z can see it in his face, and Chantal does too, and they exchange a look of _aw, here it goes_.

Jimmy lisps, "Eh, alright, maybe I've changed my mind about talking to Jefferson. But maybe my sexual stylings aren't up to his par, you never know. I'll probably need more ammunition to change his mind than sexual propositions."

"What are you even talking about?" Gerard demands. He's looking at all of them worried-like, like _they're_ the crazy ones, and he isn't. Ha, as if. Gerard's the one with the flakiest brother ever and the one who likes to hang out with that trash-talking punk Iero all the time.

Lyn-Z adds in her two cents. "Jimmy, you have...connections. You know people. I'm sure you can get Jefferson to see the light."

"But why would I want to? I don't go to Barker Street that often."

"I go there often!" Chantal chimes in. "Bob loves me."

"Bob loves everyone who pays off their tabs."

"Still, they're not my people," Jimmy says.

Gerard's face falls, and Lyn-Z jumps in again. "Who's to say they're not your people? You could make them your people. Integrate. It's been done before," and she points to her own face and smiles winningly.

Jimmy's scratching his chin and peering between her and Gerard, and sliding sideways looks at Steve. "Hmm, well I do know a guy. If the guy agrees, there might be something to be done."

"If the guy agrees," Steve repeats.

"And if the funds can be charmed up."

"And if the legalities can be tied up long enough."

"And if the person is interested enough in Barker Street."

"In keeping it the same, yes. Vested interest, yes? _In_ vested interest?"

"What are you saying? I don't see how any of that could be done quickly." Gerard looks so puzzled, but Lyn-Z thinks yes, yesyesyes, they've got the ball rolling. 

"This needs to work, like seriously, though. It's not a game," Chantal adds sadly. "Are you serious?"

"I am never anything but," Steve says airily, turning to Lyn-Z. "Didn't you say your roommate was in law school?" Lyn-Z goes to phone up Kitty and brings out a bottle of chardonnay too. This is going to be one hell of a conversation. 

In the middle of deliberations where Gerard's looking less desperate and more bitchily confused as to why they haven't helped before, Lyn-Z lightens the pissy tone. "Plus, I'd would rather not move out of the studio now, you know. I only just got settled in, like, this afternoon." Gerard chokes on his coffee. 

Jimmy bats his eyelashes. "Oh, of course. I'll do anything for true love." Lyn-Z hits him, and Steve starts singing Meatloaf songs, and then Kitty yells down the phone and declares it a night, they've got the fundamentals down, now who do they talk to about bearing the main load of responsibility in order to save Barker Street?

"Brian," Gerard and Lyn-Z say at the same time. Gerard chews his lip. "He's taken it up as mission, you know." 

Steve is skeptical. "But there are a bunch of renters on the street, why haven't they thought of this before?"

Jimmy is getting bored and snotty. "Because money, that's why. And because two heads are better than one. And more heads are even better than two. How many people have been in the think tank on Brian's project now?"

"Um. Well. We did say Brian, before." 

"Only him? Aw, the poor fucker. He needs to expand his reach." 

"Well not everyone's sitting back sipping Mai-Tais every Sunday with a bunch of financial brokers, _Steve_ ," Chantal snaps.

"I'm just saying! Alright, alright, jeez, I give. Lemme scare up the paperwork and we'll have this done in two shakes of a whistle."

"Steve!" Chantal yells. "You're the son of Sasquatch and a disappointed English teacher!"

"You smell of prunes and despair!"

"You are all insane," Gerard says, awed. 

"Nah, you just need to get to know my friends," Lyn-Z says. "You should hang around the Delancey Street more often. More coffee?"

***  
**BRIAN**

Brian is sitting on the counter next to his cash register and staring forlornly across the store. One last long look before it all goes out. He'll have to -he doesn't even want to think about it. He forces himself -he'll need to talk to wholesalers tomorrow, get all the inventory out of there, cut his losses on the debt so far, and - and there it is, _debt_ , huge looming pile of dept. Maybe his accountant will feel bad that her advice that would work for normal people backfired for a crowd of no-good punks and she'll do pro bono work, find out if he can declare bankruptcy. 

The door chimes, and a string-bean of a dude with lank hair walks in. 

"Sorry, we're closed."

"So here's the thing," the guy says, like he's been talking for a while instead of just starting. Ugh. Junkies. Brian does not need this today. 

"The thing is, you only _think_ you're already cashed out. I on the other hand, know much better than that." The dude folds his hands under his armpits and stands akimbo. "You wanna hear my proposition for your sorry, sorry state of affairs? Or do you wanna mope some more?"

Brian stares at the guy. The guy stares back at him, Cheshire cat grin and rocking on the balls of his feet. 

"You are gonna love me so much by the end of the day," the guy cackles. "But first! I am totally going to get a cut of this thing, and I totally get to hang around whenever want, capiche?"

The guy pulls Brian by the arm towards the door, and Brian jumps and is ready to deck him, because Brian hasn't come this far to get shoved around by overbearing cokeheads who think they can push him around. He yanks out of the guy's grip and curls his fingers, loosens his stance. 

"You tell me what the _fuck_ it is you're doing, right the fuck now. I'm a little busy fucking foreclosing on my own fucking store, and I don't have time for bullshit."

"Oh hey, man, no problem," the guy says, still grinning creepily. "I just want you to come out and meet my friend at this place, and see if he can't solve all your issues. I'm going to make your dreams come true! It'll be awesome. Do you have an accountant? You should totally bring one if you've got one."

Brian stares. And then he laughs. He doesn't sound hysterical, no, not at all. "What the fuck are you, a leprechaun? A fairy? So I get three wishes?"

"Shit dude, do I look short to you? But sure, I'll make all your wishes come true," the guy says sarcastically, and brings some keys out of his pocket, jingles them in front of Brian's face. "Time's a wasting, let's go."

And, well. Well what the fuck, why not. Brian calls up Beverly and tells her the address the dude gives him. He says, "If you knife me or Beverly and try to leave us in an alley somewhere, I will come back and break your legs. I'm not joking."

The man nods. "That's a fair trade. But where are my manners? My name's Jimmy, what's yours?"

Brian stares at him beady-eyed some more, because it tends to make people talk even if Brian's too short to be too intimidating. String-bean guy leads him out to a car double parked out front. 

"Alright fine, I already know, but you're supposed to say 'Brian', and then I'm supposed to say," the guy pauses, relishing it, "'Brian, I'm gonna to make you a deal you can't refuse.'" He opens the passenger door with a flourish like he's expecting applause.

Brian gets in and fastens his seat belt. He feels like he'll need it.

***  
**BOB**

"You, _what_?!" Bob yells.

"Yeaaaah, homeboy, I got you covered! No sweat my man, no sweat." 

"Bob, look at me. No Bob, ignore him, just look at me." Bob turned away from the maniacally grinning skinny dude at the bar who he vaguely recognizes. He squares off with Brian, and Brian has his feet planted and chin raised, looking just as stubborn as Bob feels. It's almost ten o'clock at night, and his bar is deserted, no one is there, because of the fucking "fuck off, we're broke" sign out front. He hasn't been able to contact Brian all day when they'd agreed to finished up the ends of their business and then come back to Bob's bar -well, _the_ bar, not Bob's anymore- and finish off a Jack Daniels together, for old time's sake. 

Brian's gone white-lipped and his eyes are tired. "I am not shitting you, and this isn't a joke. We have contacted everyone -yes everyone, even the crazy hair salon place and the gallery across the street, don't say bullshit because I am not in the mood- and they are all willing to keep their leases on this deal."

Bob has never seen as many numbers swirling around in front his face in his life. It's some kind of contract.

"Bob, we can do this. Join up. You and me. I swear. I swear we can do this together."

The numbers are still huge and startling, but Brian-

Bob believes in Brian. Bob believes him. 

"Bob, I can't do this alone." He's all hoarse, and he's got more fine lines across his forehead and darker undereyes, but the same steely, steady resolve underneath. That belief Brian has and holds in him. It's strong stuff. 

It's convincing stuff. 

"Okay," Bob says, voice low. "Okay, Brian. You got me." They keep looking at each other. 

***  
**RAY**

They make it. Ray can't believe it; those fuckers actually make it. 

He was waiting up at the stoop of Brian's store until he came back to mope more, and then Ray planned to grab some inventory for cheap. Going out of business sale and all that. It shouldn't take too much cajoling to pull it out of Brian. Ray was just worried about wheedling too hard and getting decked in the face. He needs both eyes open so he can focus properly on his writing, after all.

The pavement was wet and the morning grey, but Brian and Bob came bursting out of their clunker car with rainbows and sunbeams shooting out of their asses or whatever. Ray heard all the news firsthand, because again, he has the fucking best luck in the world (or possibly the worst; no cheap string for him today.)

He kind of likes those fuckers though, so he's glad they managed to harangue Jefferson into selling them the properties on Barker Street instead of some asshole outsiders. 

"Where the hell did you get the money?" is his only question. Because, Goddamn. Ray doesn't even want to think about numbers that huge. 

Brian biffs him on the head. "I have very good credit, fuck you very much, I wasn't the one late on the rent all the time. Plus there're some legal details from some dude Jimmy knows, he got an insider account or something, we're setting up all the paperwork and shit later."

"Holy shit."

"Fucking righteous!" Bob growls, grinning darkly. Ray gets out of that man's way when he throws his weight around. 

"Holy _shit_ ," Ray emphasizes. He's gotta call everyone. He's gotta call _Frank_. "You know there's only one thing we've gotta do now, right?"

"Oh yeah, we got it covered," Bob handwaves it, everything under control signal. Yes. Yes, everything is under control, finally, in that precarious way where it's about the same as always.

"So, you're not gonna sell me cheap string, are you," Ray says mostly joking. 

"Fuck it, you call a bunch of people and tell them what happened, and I'll sell you some cheap-ass strings." Ray and Brian shake on it, and that's that. 

***  
**MIKEY**

The only thing left to do is party, of course. It's a fucking monster bash. It spills out the whole street, the whole of fucking Barker Street that Brian and Bob have poured their sweat and future credit and life savings out for, for probably the rest of their lives. That is commitment, that is. Mikey is fucking impressed.

The rumors still swirl, because it _is_ still Barker Street, even though Ray had called everyone in the whole zip code to blab about it. 

Questions keep buzzing around like white noise out of a broken amp. Questions like "Where did they get that money from?" and "How does Bob even _know_ any bankers, didn't he chokehold that debt-collector one time and get blacklisted?" and "Why the fuck does Jimmy even know Jefferson?" keep making the rounds.

Jimmy, and his girl the redhead, Gerard, and Lyn-Z answer anyone who asks those questions. "Dude, Jimmy knows Jefferson from poker night. Haven't you been to Delancey's lately? That place is the shit if you're a geezer."

"Only on poker night, asshole! The rest of the time it's better than this damn bar," Lyn-Z tells Jimmy, and they clink their Bud Lites together.

Gerard says absently, "Shut up, or Bob will gut you, since he really does have a stake in this bar now. Hey, do you think this crossword ends with 'peas' or 'plus'?"

"You're terrible at that, give it here." Matt's behind the bar and snatches the newspaper away to fill it in with a flourish. "Now Bob's got stake in the whole damn street. I do _not_ want to see how much debt those poor guys are in now. I get to keep my job though, so hey, bonus."

Lyn-Z keeps drinking and laughs at Gerard's expression while Matt happily fills in the rest of the crossword blanks. "I think they'll still be collecting rent, in any case. Apparently Steve is interested in more financing details." She sighs. "I'm going to do nothing but hang around with my friends working in bars for the rest of my life, aren't I?"

"No, because I am never coming back here _again_ ," Gerard grouches and snatches away the crossword from Matt. Mikey pokes him in the side, and Gerard pokes back in the arm, and bumps the pack of cig rolled up in his t-shirt sleeve. Shit, Mikey'd forgotten he'd put that there. He's got a fat roach hiding in there waiting to come out and celebrate. 

Frank barges into the conversation with a huge hickey on his neck. "Still, how the fuck did Jimmy convince the guy to sell all his holdings to Bob and Brian? I don't get that."

"Oh, so you've joined us in this century, I see."

"Fuck you, Mikey Fucking Way! You're just a bad informant, shut up!" For that, Mikey is officially not sharing his party favor with Frank.

There's talk of whether or not Jimmy used sexual favors to pull off the deal, and no one's sure since Brian and Bob swear no, but Jimmy and Chantal and Steve say yes, of course Jimmy used his sexual wiles to close the deal, what kind of non-promiscuous person are you taking him for?

Mikey is pretty satisfied with that answer, and high-fives Jimmy as a fellow endorser of the sexually uninhibited lifestyle. 

"I am totally fucking allowed to come in here and drink and not get thrown out, ever," Jimmy adds. "I saved your asses, so no throwing me out in the cold on mine."

Bob just looks blandly affable. "Fine, I'll just throw you in the back of a police car. The drunk tank is pretty warm since it's inside a building. What? You don't think I'd let your drunk ass destroy _my_ property now, would you?" Then the band breaks out in a fight onstage, and Bob roars up there as fast as anything. There's lots of cheering at he and Ray pull them apart. 

Ah, it's good to be home. Mikey is so glad see see them all together again that for once he doesn't mind the lack of orgies.

Later on, Mikey is not that drunk, he's just tottering around a little as the party's winding down and trying to find a place to squat for a victory toke, which is how he runs into his latest potential escapade. He's in the liquor storage room and flicks the lights on to see Bob's back to the wall, Brian holding onto his collar, and they're slowly rocking against each other, a sexy push-pull-grind. Mikey puts the roach away, because _awesome_ , he could so easily get into that. They're kissing all sloppy-slow, and Brian flinches once at something, then settles down and arches more when Bob's hands start working on something Mikey can't quite see. It's fucking hot. 

He gives Bob a thumbs-up and asks if they'd like any help, but Bob just growls and Brian turns around to throw a bottle at Mikey. Mikey steps back and it smashes on the door frame instead, the smell bright, astringent, and the contents fizz, bubbling white onto the floor. 

It's only later that Mikey thinks, shit, they actually christened the store properly with some champagne or maybe just sparkling wine. Still, it's all for real now. It's all a big deal now. A monstrous big deal that is actually _happening_ right in his face. Fuck. 

He stays up late that night in the bathroom tub with the window open, contemplating the wonder of change, not toking up at all and not staying busy getting laid. He's got cold night air in his lungs and the blue-purple night-changed shapes of familiar things around him, and he thinks. He thinks about what other plans of change he could set into motion. He's only got half-formed ideas now; the future is too bright and new to anticipate, with that tang of hope hanging in the air throughout Barker Street.

None of the stores or buildings are renovated, not yet anyway, money stretched tight already to cover the regular leasing costs, and Brian despairs at keeping up with fire code in any of them, which Mikey hears a lot about as Brian moans and grumbles behind the counter for his store and complains about not having enough time to finish anything. 

"Hire me. I totally know stuff about music," Mikey says. Mindless stuff, he doesn't even know what words are coming out of his mouth.

"Fuck you, you'll just flirt all day with that skinny kid who buys the Beatles LPs." Brian does hire him to man the store though. This way Mikey totally gets more time to hit on all the regulars and he gets the Beatles kid into bed a week later. It's awesome. The Beatles kid has some good connections with the scene in Chicago, though, which Mikey is totally interested in tapping into. Maybe he'll keep the Beatles kid around for a while and get some different gigs scheduled for Bob's bar to keep the place fresh. Mikey, maybe, has a stake in that bar over any other, since they all get to keep the neighborhood now. Have a future there. He feels giddy and a little scared at the thought of keeping his Jersey base and making it into something special, of all the possibilities there. He tells Frank and Frank acts insulted. 

"What the fuck, were you actually going to go anywhere else? Fuck you."

"Well, but...I get to stay, and I get to make it awesome. I...didn't know that could happen."

Frank is confused. "We've always been awesome." Mikey opens and closes his mouth, then goes to lie down on the floor. They kick at each other's knees and watch WWE Raw. 

Brian immediately hires Steve to be their up-front financial guy in addition to his role as investor in order to use his contacts and mine money for them out of the stock market. Steve cackles with glee, then twirls his invisible evil mustache and shakes hands with everyone he meets for the next week, which makes Frank and Ray yell at him for being too annoying. (Mikey laughs at Frank _more_ at that, but forgets to eat all of Frank's Funyuns in retribution. He'll think of something else, later.) However, as soon as the legalities close on the Schechter  & Bryar Holding Company, one of the buildings does get a minor change. 

Everyone who doesn't like calling it the officially changed name of _Bob's Bar_ now gets booted right out the door. It's right up front on the ruleboard too, Rule Number Twelve, right after Rule Number Eleven, which has been changed to Orgies Before 11pm (will get you kicked out). 

Jimmy probably had a hand in that particular change. Mikey is pleased.

***  
**FRANK**

Frank rolls over and his head smacks into something hard. Goddammit. He reaches around to shove the hard thing away. 

"Fuck. Stop that," a familiar voice slurs. 

"Mikey? What-" Frank is cottonmouthy, and tries to work up some spit. "What're'ya doin' here?"

Silence. Maybe Frank is hallucinating. He bonks his head on a bony...what...bony ribcage apparently. "Stop," Mikey moans. "My head hurts."

" _Your_ head? Asshole, what about mine?" Frank sits up blurrily, then sinks back against the headboard because his spine is made of jelly. From...something. He can almost remember what happened last night to make him all quivery now.

The bedroom door opens, flooding them with bright light from the living room, and a lanky dude walks through on the way to the bathroom. He waggles his eyebrows seeing them awake.

"Gabe Saporta!" Frank is fucking scandalized and waking up quickly. He had no idea Mikey had sunk so low. He nudges Mikey, still flopped on his side under the covers. "Man, I had no idea you were so hard up for sex. I'm not punk, I can give a helping hand once in a while."

"Well, Bob did mention that beds were more comfortable than his floor." Which, that makes no sense. "You're the one who dragged us back here dude."

"No I didn't! I'd remember that."

"You were so trashed, dude!" Gabe says through the bathroom door. 

"Shut the fuck up! You busted up my kegs!" Frank yells. He's pissed and headachy and flushing because his sense-memory is coming back to him, and he really only gets all jelly-legged like this when he's been fucked for half a night. 

Something at the foot of the bed moans. 

"Hey, you said if I blew you you'd forget all about it. Amends have been made, bitch." Gabe is hanging out the doorway and brushing his teeth with _Frank's toothbrush_. Frank makes to move and tips over on his side instead. His ass hurts and his back won't let him sit up and he feels like yelling, so he does.

"Fuck dude, why are you always so fucking _loud_ ," Ray's disembodied voices moans at the foot of the bed. Ray sits up on the floor and props his head on the end the bed. Frank gapes. 

"You totally need to have us over for more orgies."

"What?!"

"Yeah, I'm real surprised you suggested it. Much props, dude," Mikey murmurs. "I'm going back to sleep now." Then he does.

Gabe says, "I'm eating all your food and leaving, bye." He takes a pair of huge neon sneakers off the windowsill and leaves the door to the living room wide open so all the light in the world streams in and Frank can watch him eating _Frank's own food_.

The rest of his memory drops in. Well, fuck. Frank didn't realize he was that bendy. Also, his taste in men is as terrible as Mikey's when he drinks Johnny Walker.

"Move over," says Ray, and makes Frank turn over on his front in the middle of his own bed while Mikey snores.

Then Ray lies down and starts rubbing his back. "I'm impressed. You took all that pretty well for being drunk. Gotta be sore though." Ray gets a good dig in under the shoulderblades, and Frank forgets about the indignities of orgies, heats up and whines. "Hey now. Rest up. You got a show tonight, right?"

Frank squeezes his eyes shut, stretches his achy legs, and anticipation peels open and pops in his chest. "Oh. Yeah, fuck yeah." Ray squeezes Frank's shoulder, and star showers and gooey butterflies flutter through him, and -fuck, fuck yeah. 

"My band's gonna kick your band's ass."

"As if."

Frank half-closes his eyes and grins, stretches out with both arms and nearly bumps Mikey awake again. "You'll see."

"Yeah, we'll see a lot if you decide to moon everyone and rip up the beer tap again."

"Fuck yeah, man." Frank has a reputation to keep up. "There were clowns and a jello pyramid that one time, remember?

"What?" Gabe's hanging through the doorway again stuffing poptarts in his face. He sounds impressed. "Fuck man, all that and orgies? I should hang out on Barker Street more often."

Ray's easing something sore in Frank's back and the sunlight is making him sleepy-warm and generous, so Frank agrees. "You really should come out here more often. We're awesome."

 

THE END.


End file.
